


Conjunctio Fiet

by CharlieMads



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Eggsy!Whump, Even if you’re not sure after the prologue, Friends to Lovers, Give it a try, Harry!Angst, Hurt/Comfort, I tried for humour, M/M, Mutual Pining, Oblivious!Harry, POV Multiple, POV Third Person, Prologue is a scene setter, Rating for Language, These two are ridiculous, and obligatory sex scenes further down the line, and the entire abo universe, atypical abo universe, but it's vague, hinted at developing Merlin/Roxy, if you squint you'll likely miss it, let me know how I did, making my own rules up when it comes to dynamics, named but otherwise background knights, no dubcon, no mindless sex and heats, not TGC compliant, oblivious!Eggsy, post TSS AU, style and tone changes for the rest of the story, utterly done Merlin and Roxy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-16
Updated: 2018-03-02
Packaged: 2019-03-05 18:14:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 32,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13393467
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CharlieMads/pseuds/CharlieMads
Summary: Harry loves Eggsy. Eggsy loves Harry. The entirety of Kingsman know this to be true, with the exception of the pair themselves, even though in the aftermath of Valentine and Harry's resurrection they now share a home in Stanhope Mews. They have a steady routine of dinner and tv between missions, duty and silently pining for one another, both believing that their feelings are completely unrequited.It's almost exactly a month before Christmas that everything goes to shit.Harry discovers an untimely truth, Eggsy suffers, and Merlin just wants to smack their heads together and get some sleep: 10 out of 10, would lock them in a room. But that's relying on the assumption that Eggsy pulls through and Harry gets his head out of his arse, neither of which are certain...





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> First fanfic in the Kingsman universe. I am utter Hartwin trash, and having consumed hundreds of fics in the last 2 months, I'm now proudly presenting my own offering. It's set in an ABO universe after a fashion, but there are some major deviations from the 'norm' that will hopefully become clearer as you work your way through the fic. I read ABO in a number of fandoms, but there are some where I don't like how the inherent mindlessness and dubcon doesn't fit my own personal take on the world and characters, and Kingsman appears to be one of those. So, suspend all known tropes all who enter.
> 
> At present I've got 8 completed chapters, but I have previous, well-documented form for massive writer's block under 10 aliases and in probably a dozen fandoms over the last 20 years. That said, I've knocked out 30k words of this in 4 weeks, which makes it both my longest fic to date and hitherto unheard of for me in terms of pace. As the juices are still flowing and I don't seem to be slowing _yet_ , I'm working on the principle that this will be the fic that actually gets finished. You have permission to signet ring me if it doesn't.
> 
> Huge thanks to my baby sis for putting up with the endless muttering and the creepy, intense way I stare at her as she reads each chapter. She knows who she is, and that this is entirely her fault for putting the film on with me in the room. She also now knows who I am in Fandomland, which, let me tell you, is absolutely terrifying. Don't do it.

Harry Hart was, first and foremost, a gentleman.

It was for that reason, and that reason alone he told himself, that on discovering Eggsy had been living in his house during his involuntary absence, he extended the invitation for the other man to stay a bit longer. It would have been rude not to given that Stanhope Mews was in exactly the same pristine condition as when he’d died. Even his pot plants were thriving, something they hadn’t done particularly well under Harry’s sole care. And if that temporary stay of unanticipated homelessness quite quickly became less temporary when the two men discovered that they _liked_ living together? Well, then Eggsy was simply no longer homeless.

The first three months of co-habitation were a bit of a blur in some respects. Between the physio and rehab sessions, the hours of reconditioning in the gym and general reorientation to life as a super spy in the land of the living, all of which were initially accompanied by an unpredictable soundtrack of brain-splitting headaches, Harry had taken solace in Eggsy’s company. Coming home to another presence in the house, to shared meals and quiet (and not so quiet) nights of companionship was a balm that Harry had never known he needed until he had it before him. On his good days there was conversation liberally laced with mutual teasing as they worked together to prepare dinner, the two of them flaking out side by side afterwards with their feet propped on the coffee table to either talk some more or pick apart whatever programme took their fancy on the TV. Eggsy would watch pretty much anything without complaint, though he always offered fairly steady running commentary on virtually everything they watched from The Blue Planet to The Walking Dead, but it turned out they shared a long love of spy films and dodgy B movies and verbally ripping them to shreds right from the opening credits. On his bad days, there was soothing quiet, dim lighting and unobtrusive but utterly genuine care-taking. Eggsy seemed to just _know_ when Harry was in pain no matter how hard the older man worked to keep it from him. He’d get this little furrow in his brow when he looked at Harry, eyes narrowing very slightly before softening again, and the older man had learnt very quickly that resistance was essentially futile. Harry had stubbornly tried to make it rankle his pride, actively sought to find some measure of ire he could dredge up to thwart the way Eggsy unassumingly cared for him on those days, but it had proven to be nigh on impossible from the get go. There was no pity, no mothering, just some sort of innate understanding of what Harry needed and how to make sure he got it without getting his head bitten off in the process. If ever Harry had needed further proof that Eggsy was born to be a Kingsman, the fact that he could tolerate his pain-induced moods and borderline offensively insulting snark without putting a bullet in his kneecap would have been it. Not even Merlin, with all their years of unbreakable friendship, would risk switching out a glass of whiskey for two mind-bendingly strong painkillers and a cup of green tea when the glass was residing in Harry’s hand. But Eggsy did, and Harry? Harry let him. With hindsight, that really should have been the first warning.

Or perhaps the second.

The first warning should actually have been the tiny voice that had piped up in Harry’s hindbrain as Eggsy had strode out of Holborn nick, shoulders hunched with the weight of the world. _Well hello, handsome._ Because even with the snapback, trackies and scowl, Harry had registered the strength beneath his clothes, the good looks that wouldn’t have been out of place on a catwalk. Even more so the first time Eggsy had actually grinned at him, because of him, all dimples and joy. He’d been a fool to disregard the physical attraction he initially felt as unimportant. An even bigger fool when he got to know Eggsy better and didn’t recognise the truth of not being able to find him wanting in any way. The lad was remarkable, loyal and brave to a fault, spirit uncrushed by the shittiest of upbringings and a breath of fresh air where Harry hadn’t realised he’d somehow been breathing smog for so long. But then Chester fucking King and Harry’s ridiculous temper tantrum had happened, followed by the utter cluster-fuck of Kentucky and 4 months of piecing his memory back together whilst the world went to hell in a handbasket.

The attraction was still there afterwards, Harry was injured not dead after all, but beyond acknowledging to himself that the younger man remained fit as fuck with a heart of pure gold, there was little in the way of overt sexual interest in his brain. He simply didn’t have the energy to spare when most days even walking JB after rehab sessions was a challenge. The emotional recovery took its toll too, not least because there were days where the guilt of what had been witnessed by Mr. Pickle threatened to swallow him whole. Those who had died at his hand turned out to be far less of an issue than the memory of his final moments with Eggsy and what the other man had endured as a result. When he had finally gathered the courage to raise the subject, speech carefully planned out over the course of several weeks to the point of anal retention, Eggsy had less rained on his parade than lobbed a Molotov cocktail. There was no blame to be found, none, just an unbearably soft look as Eggsy cut him off before he could really start and told him with the utmost sincerity ‘It’s alright, Harry. Honest. Nothing to forgive,,’. For a very long moment, Harry had thought he might actually cry.

Once he was sufficiently physically recovered though? Well, if the first time he had awoken with an erection that he actually wanted to deal with his mind had wandered mid-wank to soulful green eyes and washboard abs, being the fool that he was Harry had blamed it wholly on the circumstances. He’d been alone most of his adult life by necessity, alone much of his childhood too truth be told, and getting shot in the head and dying for a few months was likely to make anyone have some very serious reconsiderations regarding their lifestyle. He’d never have a mate, he knew that, but there was a vast swathe of hitherto unexperienced intimacy in the domesticity they’d easily fallen in to, and that, _naturally_ , explained why ‘Eggsy is bloody attractive’ had become appropriate hand-job fodder in his mind. He’d had a rough ride of it by anyone’s definition since Valentine and that sodding church, and Kingsman aside, Eggsy was the one constant in his life that hadn’t waned in that time. If by the six month mark of the two of them sharing a home Harry was better acquainted with his right hand than he had been since his late teens? That was something he wasn’t going to think about too closely at all, and for a variety of reasons that started with their age difference and ended with him refusing to admit how completely and desperately he’d fallen for Eggsy.

_Well, bugger._

Harry had done what Harry did best: he’d supressed, repressed and denied. Or tried to at least. On nights when Eggsy was away on missions he allowed himself the fantasy of what it would be like to live together as more than housemates. He imagined courting the younger man, imagined what Eggsy’s response would be to Harry telling him that he loved him. The Eggsy in his mind was receptive and responsive, wanted to be bitten just as much as Harry wanted to bite and be bitten in turn. He wanted Harry to indulge the often almost overwhelming urge to protect and provide he had to expend so much energy on crushing lest he slip and let his feelings be known. Somehow - mostly thanks to his newfound lack of consistent depth perception and no one else being stupid enough to take the job - he was Arthur now, and the fact that he was living with one of his agents, no matter how frustratingly platonic the arrangement might be, was something that set some tongues wagging. Even the suggestion of preferential treatment was one that had Harry’s blood boiling, because any preferential treatment Eggsy might, _might,_ very occasionally and surreptitiously receive was entirely based on the fact that he was an exceptional agent. Truly, one of the best Kingsman had ever seen. A late night, clandestine delivery of a can of full-sugar Sprite and a kitkat to Eggsy’s bedside in medical did not a scandal make. Not when you considered that what Harry really wanted to do when Eggsy was injured was climb into bed beside him, hold him impossibly close and growl at anyone that came within twenty feet for the duration. A scandal was acting on the thoughts that had Harry exiting the gym walking like John Wayne on steroids, where the reality of those sessions was less a work out to keep his fitness up and more about taking any available opportunity to watch a half-nude Eggsy bend and stretch into a variety of mind-blowingly flexible poses before pummelling someone into the floor, all in the name of training. Even after repeating the experience multiple times, for science of course, Harry still wasn’t sure which bit turned him on the most.

By the nine month mark, when he somehow, inexplicably scented the change in Eggsy’s cycle despite the younger man being religious to the point of zealotry with his suppressant cover, the hand he’d squeezed tightly around his first knot in five years was a very poor substitute for what he really wanted. On the third day of trying to hide seemingly endless hormone fuelled hard-ons and engaging in multiple, progressively less furtive bouts of completely dissatisfying masturbation in a variety of highly inappropriate locations, Harry had reached his absolute breaking point and stooped to an epic new low, raiding the wash basket for one of Eggsy’s worn t-shirts after the other man had left for a 24 hour reconnaissance mission. Harry Hart was well aware that he was not a good man, but as he fucked desperately into his fist with the soft cotton under his cheek he found he couldn’t care less about his sudden, unplanned descent into even creepier, dirty old man territory. Eggsy’s scent was in his nose and his voice in his head and suddenly the ache in his groin promised pleasure rather than the repeated disappointment experienced thus far. He couldn’t explain it: he was as certain as he could be without asking outright that no one else had noticed the shift in the lad’s scent, his behaviour was no different to normal, but it was the closest thing to a rut Harry had had in two decades and he unerringly knew without a doubt that sans pills Eggsy would have been in heat. Kingsman suppressants were the best available, bloody well individually tailored to each agent and to all intents and purposes considered completely infallible, they had to be given the nature of the work they did, but if he didn’t know better he’d have sworn that somehow they _had_ failed on this occasion. He’d come with an intensity that bordered on painful and embarrassingly fast, or it would have been had he actually been inside the other man, Eggsy’s name a repeated prayer on his lips. It had taken a further 10 minutes of spilling over his fist until working his knot tipped from ecstatic release into overstimulation, but panting and groaning into his now Eggsy-scented pillow (and oh, what a mistake that would turn out to be), Harry was pretty damn sure there couldn’t be a single drop of come left in him at that point anyway.

Harry Hart had accepted that he was now a little bit less of a gentleman in the afterglow.

He would never be completely certain of how he’d gone from jerking off in his bed a further three times to utterly shit-faced and being baby-sat by Merlin, but that’s exactly what had happened. He had a vague memory of phoning the other man, but by that point he was thoroughly drunk in an effort to save his poor, slightly chafed but still ridiculously interested cock, and well on his way to morose. By mutual agreement the exact circumstances of that night had never been raised again, but he’d told Merlin. All of it, from innocent start 18 months previously to the day’s porno finish, including the fact that he could _smell_ Eggsy despite the suppressants and _I fucking love him, Merlin._

_“Aye, you do. Was beginning to think neither of you daft bastards would ever realise it,”_

The Scotsman had poured them both a drink then, hesitated for a second before also snagging the bottle and joined Harry on the floor, back resting against the base of the sofa. In his usual, sardonic way he’d tried to convince Harry he was being an utter twat and that he should just tell Eggsy and put the entirety of Kingsman out of their misery, because _jesus fuck, Harry, we’re not paid enough to put up with this shite and I’ve got fifty quid riding on you claiming him by Christmas_. He rolled his eyes when Harry cited 15 different reasons as to why he couldn’t say anything ( _won’t, not can’t_ , Merlin had corrected him), the primary one being that Eggsy simply wasn’t interested in Harry that way, and Merlin, by now six sheets to the wind himself, had laughed so hard he’d nearly cried.

_“I swear to God, for a smart man, you are fucking thick as shit sometimes,”_

The night beyond that was a Gaussian blur of more alcohol, accusations of ‘moony eyes’ and Harry being unable to see the woods for the trees because _he’s a fucking hot, unmated omega that most alphas would knot their mothers to be with, why the ever-loving fuck do you THINK he’s still living with you ya’ daft prick? You’ve still got one good eye and a few working brain cells left in your head, fucking use them._ At some point, though both men would vehemently deny it to their dying day, there’d been some very manly hugging and mutual appreciation long, long overdue because Harry was so-fucking-sorry-no-really and Merlin had missed-Harry-unbelievably-when-he-was-dead, and if he ever pulled another stunt like that he’d shove his foot so far up his arse he’d be tasting leather for the rest of his days…and then the pair of them had promptly and very gracelessly passed out where they were sat. For their sins, Merlin woke an indeterminate but far too short amount of time later with a bloody painful crick in his neck, a mouth like a hairy cat’s arse and to the sound of Harry worshipping the porcelain gods with Mr. Pickle as his witness. _That dog has seen far too much, poor bastard._

The strangest part of the night was that it had helped, after a fashion. Yes, there’d been a further two days of Harry finding himself near permanently hard and needing to wash another two of Eggsy’s shirts to dispose of the copious evidence, and before that both he and Merlin had only just survived the hangover of doom that escorted them to the mansion when Bors’ mission had gone predictably and spectacularly tits up just to spite them. (He was fairly certain that Merlin had come perilously close to puking in his pot plant at one point, he knew he definitely had). But by the time Eggsy returned 48 hours later than scheduled, whole and hale and generally unharmed, Harry felt like a weight had been lifted and he could once more actually look at the younger man without feeling a dire need to rub himself off against the nearest solid object. As the nights grew longer and colder, they settled back into their routine of dinner, tv and laughter between fairly mundane missions, and Harry did his absolute best not to get caught staring with moony eyes, and he absolutely did not find himself dwelling on some of the things he could remember Merlin had said that night and wondering ‘what if?’.

It was almost exactly a month before Christmas when it all went to shit.


	2. Chapter One

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Eggsy ponders.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I mention that I completely disregard medical and scientific fact at times in favour of the story? There's a bit in this, you'll know it when you get to it, that is complete fabrication of scientific reality. It's also utterly ridiculous, but the idea came, and the idea stuck, and I'm just the author. There was nothing I could do once the words were on the page. Suspension of disbelief is your friend.

Eggsy hadn’t noticed at first.

The adrenaline was flowing as he raced down the hallway towards the exit, a red sigil lighting up one corner of his glasses to indicate the direction of the rendezvous point and Merlin’s sure voice guiding him in his ear. Adrenaline could be both an ally and a total bitch depending on the circumstances, and whilst in that moment it gave him the boost needed to take out the four dickwads between him and the next junction via a fairly impressive series of kicks to the head linked by wall runs, it also meant that he wasn’t aware he’d been darted until he’d taken out another half a dozen wannabe megalomaniacs and the extraction van was in his sights. 

So no, Eggsy hadn’t noticed at first, and to be fair, he felt ok as he pegged it full-throttle over the last hundred metres or so. But that didn’t mean that he was going to keep feeling ok, and as Harry slammed the door shut behind him and Eggsy all but threw himself onto the floor of the van to negate getting tipped arse over tit as whoever was driving (Percival, most likely,) tore off like the hounds of hell were on their tail, he put two fingers to the small but remarkably painful spot at the back of his neck and made his situation known.

“Think I’ve been darted,” 

Harry’s hands were on him before he’d even got the words completely out, quickly but carefully prising away Eggsy’s fingers to inspect the skin underneath and immediately finding the tell-tale, red bite of a hypodermic entry wound in the vulnerable skin just below his hairline.

“Shit,” Harry swore softly, using a knee to gently brace Eggsy where he lay against the side of the van as they screeched around a corner, and then a bit louder, “Merlin?”

_“I heard, Arthur. How do you feel, Excalibur?”_

Eggsy ran a quick mental inventory, took a couple of deep breaths, wiggled his fingers and toes, but all he could concentrate on fully was the way that Harry’s blissfully warm palm was now firmly curled all protective-like around his nape, and fuck if that didn’t feel so unbelievably good despite the fact that he’d just killed at least 15 people, permanently disabled a dozen more and been potentially dosed up with who-the-fuck knew what. He turned slightly where he was sprawled, enough that he could see the older man now, hunkered down on one knee to support Eggsy but still keep himself upright as they hurtled over rough terrain, and found Harry’s dark eyes immediately fixed on his own.

“Nothing feels fucked up, Guv’,”

_Yet, at least._

Although the words were mostly for Merlin’s benefit, the grip on his neck tightened just a fraction, a more obvious gentling that he regrettably didn’t think Harry was even aware he was doing as Eggsy held his gaze. The man was actually going to kill him one of these days with all his fucking little touches, swear to God, and he seemed completely oblivious to the fact that there were a lot of other places Eggsy repeatedly wanted his bloody amazing hands before he shuffled off this mortal coil. Under different circumstances he’d have wondered if it was _that_ kind of dart, but after almost a year of near perfect yet heart-breakingly friendly living together, Eggsy was familiar enough with his responses to Harry Hart to know that a hand on his shoulder was generally all it took to have him hard enough to hammer nails hands-free. With one of those strong hands now on his sodding neck, of all places, it truly was a miracle he wasn’t already coming untouched in his bespoke fucking trousers.

_“Arthur?”_

Harry held his gaze for a split second longer before it darted away, quickly but thoroughly scanning Eggsy from the top of his head down to the deadly tips of his Oxfords. The hand stayed firmly fixed on his nape.

“Breathing’s fine, no rashes or discolouration that I can see. He rather looks like his usual fine specimen of manhood as it stands,”

And oh, that smile, that fucking tiny little smirk that Eggsy loved so much was upturning the corner of Harry’s mouth now even if it wasn’t reaching his eyes the way it usually did back home. Bastard. Such a fucking flirt. Why couldn’t he ever actually mean it?

_“Ok. ETA to the landing strip is 10 minutes. You both know the drill. Keep an eye, and If anything changes or feels weird somehow then say something, Excalibur. When you’re on board the plane we’ll get a digital analysis and take it from there. With any luck, it’ll be something you’ve already been desensitised to and you’ll have nothing but a painful little prick for your troubles,”_

Eggsy chuckled and let his eyes slide closed at that, acutely aware of Harry’s own eyes still on him.

“What’s one more prick, eh, Merlin?”

“What indeed? Though I do resent the implication,” Harry was the one to answer, clearly amused. He casually settled himself more comfortably until he was sat at Eggsy’s side, long legs stretched out in front of him and his hip perfectly placed to stop the younger man from being tossed around. Eggsy could sit up, should sit up in fact, but he’d just spent the last 4 days and 7 hours fighting his arse off for queen and country, thank you very much, and was suitably bruised and knackered as a result. And Harry, perfect fucking Harry Hart, was right there next to him, touching him, making him feel safe and content and like he could actually start purring any fricking second…he wasn’t anywhere near enough of a martyr to voluntarily give that up. Eggsy’s eyes shot back open.

“Wait. What the hell? What are you doing here, Harry?”

Harry smiled at him again, this time bright and wide. “I very fortuitously happened to be in the neighbourhood for a thing, so thought I’d offer my assistance and private jet so you could be home in time for dinner. How do you feel about Thai tonight?”

Eggsy narrowed his eyes, not entirely sold on the idea that Harry had already been in the area on Kingsman business, but with no real reason to doubt what he was being told other than the fact that the older man was currently looking quietly yet ridiculously pleased with himself all things considered. He _did_ travel fairly regularly as Arthur, and Eggsy _didn’t_ know the ins and outs of who, where or when beyond the information he needed to know as Excalibur or that which Harry volunteered at home, but there’d been no mention of a possible trip before he’d left. Unpredictable as being an international spy was want to be, short of an entirely unanticipated apocalypse, Arthur’s jaunts to far-flung places were generally much more advanced planning than ad hoc in nature. It was a fact that Eggsy was incredibly grateful for, because on the few occasions Harry had been unexpectedly out of the country it had all but left him beside himself internally. It was ridiculous and pathetic and extreme, but he couldn’t help it, because as unrequited as he knew it to be, Harry was home and safety and comfort and the house was so empty without him. And now Eggsy was tired and damned if he was going to waste energy looking this particular gift horse in the mouth, because even as he knew that the hand still – _wtf?_ S _till! -_ on his neck would inevitably leave him soon, the idea of 6 solid hours in Harry’s company in an enclosed space followed by home and food sounded like a reasonably satisfactory commiseration prize. As for right, right now? He’d use this time to memorise the feel of the man’s hand on his nape and have a fucking good wank as a result at some point in the very near future.

“Can we get pad thai? I want some pad thai. And that spicy shit you love,”

Harry’s smile softened into something less shit-eating but no less pleased in response, some of that warmth finally reaching his eyes to offset what looked like concern, and consequently easing the annoyingly familiar tight and intangible thing in Eggsy’s chest as a result. Love sucked. Unrequited love sucked actual fucking balls, and not in the good way.

“Sounds like a bloody good plan,”

For the remaining few minutes of their homage to Fast and Furious they stayed in a ridiculously, effortlessly comfortable silence broken only by the squealing of tyres, furious horn beeping and Percival ( _I_ knew _it,_ ) gruffly cursing his way through the traffic like the crusty sailor it turned out he had actually once been.

Which is how, less than fifteen minutes later, Eggsy was safely settled in the familiar comfort of an airborne Kingsman jet. Percival was now in the cockpit flying them back to Blighty, Harry was rooting through one of the many storage compartments at the front of the cabin and, beyond the wholly expected aches and pains that came with receding adrenaline following a truly epic fist fight, Eggsy still felt absolutely fine. No gut-wrenching sense of panic and impending doom like that time he’d been dosed in Bahrain, or the intense itching that had driven him half-mad after Berlin and resulted in Harry undertaking a midnight mercy run for as many bottles of calamine lotion as he could conceivably lay his hands on. He had literally ended up sat in Harry’s en suite tub covered up to his dick in the stuff before the night was through and almost found God in the process. Maybe, just maybe, he _had_ lucked out this time and whatever had been in the dart was something he was already immune to. Or maybe the dart had malfunctioned and not actually injected whatever the hell it was loaded with, just pierced the skin, and other than the current sting in his nape he’d get off scott free. Whatever the reasoning for the fact that he currently didn’t feel any different to post-mission normal, it didn’t change that he had been darted, and as such he still did have to have his blood checked pretty damn quick. Beyond panic attacks and wanting to scratch himself raw with a cheese grater, he was well aware that there were plenty of other compounds out there with far more potentially dangerous outcomes coupled with a frustrating penchant for delayed activation. Clearly, Harry was going to do that now, as he returned with supplies from the medical compartment and sat down in the seat beside Eggsy.

“Still alright?”

It wasn’t said in the intimate tone he used with Eggsy in the house, but it wasn’t wholly his Arthur voice either, this a softer blend of both that somehow never failed to do things to the younger man whenever he was fortunate enough, or unfortunate enough depending on your view, to be subjected to it. He didn’t make a habit of categorising Harry’s voice or his behaviour in any way, shape or form, because that would of course just be monumentally lame and sad, but Eggsy _had_ noticed that it was a tone he only ever used when they were working. And if he’d started referring to it in his head as Harry’s ‘Eggsy at work’ voice, well, who the fuck else was going to know?

“Tip-top, Harry,”

“Good. Let’s get this done then, before Merlin starts nagging again,”

Eggsy hummed in agreement and voluntarily offered up his left hand – well, it wasn’t like he could actually tell Harry that right this minute he’d really much prefer to wrestle with him for it, naked – and then watched as the other man carefully cleaned his index finger with an alcowipe before pressing a lancet to the skin. A sharp sounding click, the slightest, entirely embarrassed hiss from Eggsy, and there was blood welling at the puncture site. Harry competently squeezed the end of his finger to encourage just a slightly larger sample with his own gloved digits, then carefully collected it with a digital probe virtually indistinguishable to one you’d use to check blood sugar levels unless you knew the difference. With an affirmative beep, it was done and winging its way across the airwaves to Merlin back at HQ within thirty seconds flat. Cushty.

_“I’d like a veinous sample too, lad. Just to be safe,”_

Or not.

That? That there? Eggsy’s worst fucking nightmare in one tiny, two word medical term. He fucking hated having blood drawn. Merlin knew it, Harry knew it, hell, he figured that 99.9% of fucking Kingsman worldwide knew it by now, and Eggsy sucked in an unhappy breath through his teeth.

“Really, Merlin?”

It was Harry that answered first, returning the analysis machine to its bag.

“Far better to be safe than any of us sorry, Eggsy,”

And oh, you bastard, Harry, you total, _utter_ _bastard_ , because he was looking at Eggsy so intently now, brows drawn slightly, tone soft in a way that you’d have to be absolutely, completely fucking heartless not to be effected by it. It was the same tone he used when Eggsy was occasionally a grade A knob about going to medical, and that usually only happened for precisely this reason. He’d been beaten, stabbed, blown up, fractured several bones (both during his time at Kingsman and before) and been concussed insensate more than once, but he would very genuinely prefer to deal with any of those over having a blood test.

Eggsy knew it was stupid, he did. He just couldn’t help it. And it wasn’t like he made a fuss when it was being done, or fought or anything, he just generally actively avoided it wherever possible in whichever way was the most convenient at the time. Sure, if he was hurt, he’d lie there and just take it, he wasn’t that messed up, but the follow-ups and sporadic routine tests? The less essential samples? On the third occasion he’d tried his tested and true ‘the other doctor already took it’ routine at Kingsman and it failed, he knew he’d have to get a bit more creative. Standing before a thoroughly pissed off Merlin a few weeks later, he’d realised that trying to pass off JB’s blood as his own for a second time was probably the stupidest idea he’d ever had and he should have quit that one while he was ahead. He’d been beyond amazed when it worked the first time, but then they had literally only been checking his iron levels. JB had loved all the red meat. What followed after had been the singularly most humiliating conversation in the history of humiliating conversations, not least because both Merlin and then Harry had been so bloody kind about it once they understood. They’d been angry too, just mostly not at him, and in some ways that had actually made him feel worse.

See, he’d only been about nine when Dean had laid into him so hard one night he’d started pissing blood. It was the first of many proper beatings he’d get off the man and Eggsy had learnt a lot from it at the time, both about his bastard stepdad and his young self. Spurred on by his mum’s screaming, and worrying that he might have damaged the kid enough to do serious time if it came out the cause was his fists, the knob had proactively taken him to A&E because he’d ‘fallen down the stairs’. It had been fine at first because there was cartoons and he was in no small amount of pain and they were all so fucking _nice_ to him, but then they’d come at him with a needle and his veins had seemingly dried up like a haematological Sahara. After three failed attempts where he’d lain still, aside from sobbing, and tried so hard to be a good boy, he’d lost his battle against the pain and panic and started to fight back. Ever kind and helpful, Dean had simply used what felt like his entire bodyweight to pin him to the bed despite all the bruises, whilst some miserable, old cow of a nurse had again shoved what now felt like a knitting needle in his arm and told him not to be so silly. And that’s how Eggsy’s hatred of blood tests had begun.

Once he’d got past his pride and total embarrassment, the couple of pseudo-forced therapy sessions he’d had with Gaius after Bloodgate had helped, but the memory would always be there, tempting him to avoid anything that might trigger it.

_“I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t think it necessary. Truth though, lad? If I needed bloods doing, it’s Arthur I’d want holding the needle. He can get it in so painlessly, no matter how hard,”_

There was a momentary, shocked pause before Eggsy burst out laughing, completely unable to help himself just as Harry seemed to somehow choke on his own tongue for a second, cheeks rapidly turning a gorgeous shade of pink even as he did his absolute best to quickly school his face back into something cool, calm and collected.

“ _Can_ he now? Interesting. Thanks, Guv’,”

“Yes, thank you very much for that, Merlin,” Harry all but ground out over the other man laughing in their ears, but there was still a small smile on his face as he looked at Eggsy, and the younger man smiled back for a moment before sobering again. Fuck, he really did hate blood tests, even if he trusted the man before him with his life and then some.

“So…painlessly no matter how hard, yeah?” Eggsy asked, no amusement lacing his tone now and sounding somewhat pathetic even to his own ears.

“Just lay back and think of England, Eggsy my dear,”

It was Eggsy’s turn to blush at that.

_Fucking hell, Harry._


	3. Chapter Two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry watches and ponders.

There was a sunset outside the window, a truly spectacular one, all pinks and oranges on the horizon beneath darkening blues, but Harry found all he had eyes for was the vision curled up opposite him. He was supposed to be going through completed mission reports, but he’d given up on pretending to concentrate on his tablet about five minutes after Eggsy had dozed off. The younger man had reclined his seat as far back as it would go, and was now turned on his side with his knees tucked up towards his chest and his head pillowed on his elbow. His tie and jacket were abandoned on the chair next to him, the top two buttons of his shirt undone, and with his hair gradually slipping from its product hold he looked so soft and inviting that Harry was slightly concerned for his continuing sanity as their flight home progressed. Even more so than usual, which was saying something when you considered that he felt in danger of losing his mind at least 90% of the time when it came to the younger man.

The knot that had been sitting in his chest since Eggsy had made his announcement from the floor of the van was finally, finally beginning to recede as time passed and there was no evidence of any ill effects from the dart he’d been hit with, but experience told him that it would likely take a lot longer for all of the concern to dissipate and his protective instincts to calm down to a point where he didn’t want to wrap the other man in a metaphorical blanket and forbid him to ever leave the house again. In lieu of doing so, he’d satisfied at least a small measure of his need to care and protect by gently removing Eggsy’s glasses and draping an actual blanket over his sleeping form. He’d only managed to resist the urge to physically tuck him in and brush his hair from his forehead through sheer force of will. Well, that, and the fact that he didn’t want to give Merlin any more material with which to potentially emotionally blackmail him unless absolutely unavoidable. That list was already far too long for comfort, and after the day’s events now also included the fact that Harry’s immediate response to seeing a potentially injured Eggsy for the first time in five days had been to gentle him. At length.

_Christ, man_. _What_ were _you thinking?_

Harry knew that was just it. He hadn’t been thinking at all, in that moment he’d been feeling and his emotions had been all over the place. In his own defence, he thought it was completely understandable under the circumstances, those circumstances being that Harry was irrevocably, insurmountably and idiotically in love with the man. It was very simple, really: Eggsy was an omega, Harry was an alpha, and biological instinct dictated that when an omega you cared about was in distress you acted immediately to alleviate it. So, he had done just that, despite the fact that Eggsy wasn’t actually in distress and the action had therefore probably been more about soothing Harry’s own thoroughly distressed, archaic hindbrain than anything else. Sighing to himself, not for the first time he wryly noted that for all the other changes, he was still an expert, self-delusional bullshitter at least, even with the bullet to the head. The only positive to his spontaneous, never-before-previously experienced and absolute lack of control was that Eggsy hadn’t pulled away, or punched him out, so at least the next time he fantasised about the two of them being mated he’d know what having the other man’s nape beneath his palm actually felt like. He’d half-expected Merlin to call him out on it, a low _for fuck’s sake_ or similar in his ear, but the Scot hadn’t said a word even when what could have initially, at a push been dismissed as a gendered panic response turned into ten minutes and seventeen seconds of borderline sexual harassment. Not that Harry had been counting.

_“Oh, for the love of God, stop staring at the lad,”_ Speak of the devil. _“He’s the only thing I’ve seen through your glasses for the last four hours, Harry,”_

He was the only thing in the universe worth looking at as far as Harry was concerned, and it wasn’t often that he got the chance to just look his fill without worrying about getting caught, well aware that his desire to watch the other man at all times would likely be construed as completely inappropriate to most. Including Eggsy himself.

_“All initial blood analysis has come back completely clear. When you get back I’ll get medical to run a full screen on the vial you drew just to be sure, but I’m as confident as I can be that there’s nothing doing,”_ Merlin continued in his ear, the teasingly exasperated edge that had coloured his opening salvo gone in favour of doing his best to reassure Harry with facts. Merlin would be well aware that part of the reason he’d been staring was rooted in pathologically needing to make sure that Eggsy didn’t suddenly begin to deteriorate. The almost overwhelming, obsessive need to count his breaths had eventually passed after the first hour he’d kept watch over him, but there’d still been a relentless thrumming of anxiety beneath his skin that prevented him from dropping his guard even a fraction.

“A failure to deploy?”

_“Impossible to tell without the dart itself, but there’s no compound signatures to be found in his blood and no irregularities in any of his haematological markers,”_

“Thank you, Merlin,”

_“Don’t thank me yet. Your ‘amended’ flight plan? It got the Russians’ panties in a right fucking twist. I’ve just spent an hour on the phone trying to convince them there was a navigational fault with the plane. I’ve managed to avert a full-scale international crisis, but there’s a 10am call to Dmitry been added to your schedule tomorrow. They wanted you to call tonight, but I’ve put them off so you and your boy can go home,”_

Harry’s first instinct was to immediately reply with ‘he’s not my boy’, but he quickly conceded the point because they both knew that he was as far as Harry’s heart was concerned. And his dick for that matter too. The fact that Eggsy being his would never be reality beyond that was moot, and ground Merlin and he had thoroughly raked over not that long ago with impressive amounts of drunken eye-rolling and frustration on both sides.

A phone call to his counterpart at the KGB was a small price to pay in exchange for the ability to bring Eggsy home himself, even if the man was a paranoid, unconscionable bore and had a tendency to make Harry’s brain hurt on a good day. The simple truth was that he would have very happily paid a lot more. The boulder of anxiety regarding the dart was comparatively miniscule and would fade relatively quickly when held up against the Mount Everest of fear that had sat in his chest for the two days Eggsy had been unexpectedly incommunicado. Harry hoped that by Christmas he might be able to forget the crushing, terrified helplessness that had hit with Merlin notifying him that Eggsy had gone dark and they didn’t know why, but he wasn’t holding his breath. Having to then continue with a visit to Norway as if nothing was wrong? He’d always been a very good actor, but that particular performance in front of seven European heads of state had been nothing short of Oscar-worthy, even if he did say so himself. It was now 12 hours since he’d been notified that Eggsy was back in comms and requesting extraction after an unintended but successful and warranted infiltration, the information having come via Merlin mirroring Eggsy’s feed to Harry’s glasses without warning so he could see and hear for himself that all was well. Suddenly hearing Eggsy’s voice, he’d covered the relieved near-whimper that had escaped from the back of his throat with an improvised coughing fit, graciously accepting the actually very necessary glass of water offered by the Swedish crown princess sat to his right. The bollocking he’d received an hour later when the other man discovered that he was airborne out of Oslo and already enroute to the extraction site had been phenomenal even by Merlin’s colourful standards. With hindsight, it might have been _slightly_ better had the other man not found out from an irate Kremlin double agent that the plane was in Russian air space, but Harry had long ago learnt that it was better to ask forgiveness than seek permission. Yes, he was well aware that Gawain had been geographically closer, thank you, but being able to get there a lot more quickly was an argument that Merlin hadn’t been able to rebut beyond a growled ‘You’re fucking _Arthur_ , Harry’.

“I’d have done the same for anyone,”

It was true. Under the same circumstances, he’d have willingly gone to any of the knights’ aid in the same way, and that was one of the reasons he had resisted becoming Arthur in the first place. Bros before hos, as Eggsy would say, where ‘hos’ in this instance meant anything that interfered with getting a Kingsman home safely if there was even the slightest possibility to do so. That the Kingsman here was Eggsy was actually irrelevant, at least in terms of Harry’s actions. Well, the mission-orientated ones. The fact that he hadn’t even stopped to think before doing so, however, that was another matter entirely. For all of Merlin’s regular sarcastic remarks to the contrary, Harry was actually very good at following orders, but if Liz Windsor herself had told him to cease and desist on this occasion, there would have been no way he could – or would - have obeyed.

“ _Aye,”_ Merlin agreed in his ear resignedly, because he knew it too _, “Which is why my remuneration for sorting out this mess will be the same as all your previous cock-ups. No Eggsy premium,”_

Harry laughed softly, magnanimously agreed to leave the traditional, well-deserved bottle of Laphroaig in the other man’s desk, and then focused as Merlin launched into a detailed status update on Lancelot and Bedivere’s ongoing mission in Morocco. By the time he was up to speed on all the still-active assignments, the quarterly fiscal meeting Merlin had attended in his stead and the result of the North London football derby, the sun had fully set and Percival had announced he was beginning their landing approach. Across from him, he watched Eggsy stir as the plane banked steeply to the left, rubbing his face against his shirt sleeve and arching slightly against his seat. The blanket Harry had carefully pulled up over his shoulders slid down with the motion, the edge snagging against the cotton ball taped to the crook of his left elbow where his sleeve was still rolled up and the sensation rousing him fully.

“I still get ice cream, right?”

Harry smiled - a wholly involuntary, unbearably gentle thing - at the soft, sleepy quality to the younger man’s voice. Then Eggsy actually opened his eyes and Harry caught himself, trying his best for an expression that didn’t look like he was a love-struck teenager and very possibly failing miserably.

If he had failed, there was no indication of it from Eggsy. He simply uncurled himself and stretched his arms high above his head in one entirely infeasible movement, left hand to right wrist as he flexed his torso almost obscenely to try and loosen the stiffness that had gathered in his sleep. The accompanying grimace morphed into a wide yawn before settling into the small, genuine smile Harry was graced with most mornings when Eggsy stumbled into the kitchen in search of tea, green eyes warm and happy, and for a moment he forgot to breathe.

Harry was utterly fucked. It was a fact he recognised and reconciled on a daily basis, but it was in the moments like these that he became acutely aware of just _how_ extensively he was shafted when it came to his feelings for Eggsy Unwin.

As he sat there momentarily stunned, the man in question straightened himself up in his seat and frowned a little, eyes still warm but now shadowed by curious concern.

“You alright, Harry?”

_Well, bollocks._


	4. Chapter Three

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which they arrive home and Eggsy helps move the story along.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had to find a way to move forward a few days. This is what I came up with. Not sure it's my best work, but this writing lark is hard, yo. Why do we do this to ourselves?

Eggsy had spent less than twenty minutes in medical on their return. The duty doctor had run through the usual questions of ‘how are you feeling?’, (absolutely fine), ‘any significant pain or discomfort?’, (nope), ‘anything at all unusual?’ and Eggsy had shook his head, legs swinging as she then carried out the standard, basic post-mission examination. That done and satisfied that despite some spectacular bruises he was indeed still breathing and his heart was still beating, she’d left him to do up his shirt and wheeled over the trolley that held all the needles, syringes and IV equipment to the bed.

“Arm please, Excalibur,”

“No need, doc. Vampire already got me, see?” Eggsy stated, pleased, undoing and folding back his cuff to reveal the fluffy evidence taped across his arm of Harry’s genuinely painless foray into phlebotomy. And hadn’t _that_ been a revelation. All knights were actually trained to take blood because, if you pardoned the pun, it was undeniably a bloody important skill to have in certain circumstances. The compulsory training had come into being after a previous Gawain, who had served in Iraq as an army medic prior to joining Kingsman, had once effectively saved the current Kay’s life in the field by doing so. Eggsy knew he could do it if push came to shove, he’d had the training, but it would always be an option of last resort as far as he was concerned and, even then, there wasn’t a cat in hell’s chance that he’d ever be able to stick a needle in someone and have them not feel a thing. Before today he wouldn’t have believed it was in any way even physically possible to do so. Very quickly but entirely irrationally feeling like his arm was at real risk of spontaneously dropping off from the elastic tourniquet fixed around his bicep, by the time Eggsy had squeezed his eyes tightly shut towards the ceiling and told the other man through gritted teeth to _PLEASE Harry, please, just stop talking already and get on with it, alright? ‘Cos Thai food or no, I really am starting to feel like just throwing myself out of this plane might be the better option regardless of whether there’s any parachutes on board or not,_ it turned out the older man was actually already done and peeling off his gloves. The sincere, quiet ‘well done’ he’d received when he finally looked up in utter, stunned amazement from watching Harry carefully press at his arm with cotton wool had filled him with a giddy, entirely inappropriate sense of pride and warmth. That feeling had then quickly morphed into a very real need to sit with his legs crossed for ten minutes solid to get his dick under control, because who knew that there could be so much innuendo involved when it came to discussing rewards and ice cream and being a good boy? Well, Harry did, apparently.   

Here and now, the doctor simply raised one dark, arch eyebrow, folding her arms across her petite body in a patented ‘yeah, right, not going to fall for that again’ that Eggsy knew he kind of deserved but still smarted all the same.

“Honest, doc. Scout’s honour. Help me out here, Harry?” Eggsy absolutely did not beg, casting his gaze to where the other man was all but fucking laughing leant against the wall by the door as the doctor refused to believe him. The sod did at least have the decency to wipe the very un-Arthur like grin off his face when she turned to look at him, dipping his head in affirmation and saving Eggsy from a second blood test in one day. Because yeah, just _no_ , alright?

They’d gone home not long after, the cab swinging by the Thai takeaway they both  favoured on the way to pick up the dinner order Harry had phoned through whilst Eggsy had quickly showered and arranged for his suit to be cleaned. The distinctly unusual absence of bullet marks in the custom Kevlar weave would hopefully endear him to Dagonet for a change, the three-piece requiring nothing other than a traditional bullet-proof fabric wash, whatever that actually entailed. Eggsy had never asked and genuinely couldn’t care less, but he suspected it was a rather complex and involved process if the old tailor’s withering glares were anything to go by whenever a knight handed over a suit besmirched by anything more than daily dirt and wear. There was a sum total of zero decorum in the way the younger man had shucked off his jacket and shoes the minute they were through the front door, and not much in Harry’s own movements as he also quickly shed his outer armour, leaving his jacket and tie folded over the white banister to go upstairs later. A quick detour to the kitchen had seen Eggsy return to the living room with plates and cutlery and the pair had sunk gratefully into the softness of the sofa before opting to simply balance cardboard trays on top of their plates rather than actually waste the time and effort required to dish the food up. If there was an occasionally charged element of stolen forkfuls taken from each other’s containers, complete with playfully rapped knuckles, mock stern outrage and laughter, well that was just fine. More than, in fact.

Eggsy had always imagined that Harry would be the epitome of grace and manners even at home, but there had now been dozens of nights in each other’s company that attested to the fact that the older man liked to rough it just like the rest of humanity on the back of a particularly long day. The reality of Harry stretched out with his socked feet propped up on the coffee table, while he did his level best not to spill takeout down the front of his shirt and bemoaned the universe when he inevitably failed, was a truly glorious thing. Even as the post-mission stiffness hit with a vengeance, seemingly settled into his very bones where he was slouched beside the other man, Eggsy revelled in the quiet and closeness that descended. Sat there, belly full and sated, trading thoroughly meaningless conversation over the background noise of the 10pm news, he felt at peace in a way that prior to Harry and Kingsman he couldn’t remember ever knowing. He knew he must have done at some point, before Dean, before his Dad died, but it wasn’t a sensation he could recall if he cast his mind back. Any memory of safety and comfort had long been lost to him, but that just made him all the more certain of what he would be willing to do if this, if Harry, was ever at risk of being forcibly taken from him. It wasn’t athletic prowess, marksmanship or sheer bloody-mindedness that gave him the edge in the field, though those were all a means to an end; his edge genuinely came from knowing that if he failed, then the moments like these would cease to exist. He would be dead, Harry would be alone and he knew all too painfully what the rougher end of that deal felt like. The breathless ache of loss had diminished with time and distance, aided in no small measure by the fact that Harry was _here_ and _alive_ , but that feeling that had threatened (and almost succeeded) to cripple Eggsy in the wake of believing him gone was one he knew he would never entirely forget. He couldn’t promise to always come back, it wasn’t a promise in his power to keep, but he _had_ made a silent oath  to himself and Harry in turn that he would fight with every fibre of his being to hold on to this life they had for as long as it was welcomed. The fact that the other man was entirely unaware of said promise and the meaning behind it, and likely never would be, had no bearing at all on the vehemence with which it had been made.

It was that overwhelming sense of rightness and safety and completion that found him unexpectedly waking with Harry’s warm hand squeezing his shoulder some undetermined amount of time later, the other man stood before him with a blink-and-you’d-miss-it smile very briefly curling his mouth that Eggsy’s exhausted brain found itself completely unable to decipher. If he hadn’t been so tired, the subsequent display of raw strength as Harry curled a large hand around his forearm and effortlessly helped propel his now horrendously sore body out of his seat when it refused to co-operate on its own would have sent his traitorous brain off in a number of different directions, all of them rated at least a 15 certificate. You know, the sort of 15 certificate that included Deadpool in its ranks: all explicit language, nudity and hot sex, preferably with Harry using that strength to pin him up against a wall and knot him silly if he had any say in the matter. To his dying day he’d never understand how half of that film got past the censors, figured it would probably take all of Merlin’s phenomenal hacking skills for anyone to ever find out. Without Eggsy even really being fully aware of any of it, with soft words and gentle touches Harry had then patiently herded him up the stairs, not-so-surreptitiously poised to steady him if he happened to stumble – that bit Eggsy _was_ aware of, mind, because Harry Hart so closely at his back in any capacity was not something that _anything_ could blind him to – and then they were somehow in his room and Harry was pulling his blinds shut before folding the covers back whilst Eggsy fumbled out of his shirt, semi-conscious at best. The next thing he really knew about anything, it was 6am and by Christ he needed a piss.

Blinking the world into reality for a few seconds, Eggsy had taken stock before moving to relieve his very unhappy bladder, firstly ascertaining that he probably could get out of bed unaided without face-planting the carpet in the process, and then identifying which bits of him were most likely to scream in protest as he did so. He did wobble slightly en route to the bathroom, thigh muscles loudly complaining in a way reminiscent of learning to ride a horse for that mission in Utrecht, but the more he moved, the more he found that the dull yet familiar full-body throbbing of the night before had subsided into something more annoying and inconvenient than totally disabling. Even the tiny but disproportionately painful wound in his neck, now covered by the white dressing given to him by medical, had eased overnight from a sharp bee sting sensation to a low-level graze-like pain.

All things considered, he felt absolutely fine.

He felt absolutely fine as he downed two ibuprofen and ate a cosy, leisurely breakfast with Harry before they both set out to the shop. Absolutely fine, as he quietly swore and frowned his way through the hated, compulsory written mission report and then engaged in a thorough, 4 hour oral debriefing with Merlin. And it was the same the following day as he sparred – lightly, because, you know, _bruises_ \- in the gym with Kay, had a catch-up lunch with his dear Roxy-lot and did his best not to gawk mindlessly at Harry for the duration of the bi-weekly roundtable briefing, because there was something about that particular brown suit that always fried his brain without fail. He thought it might be the cut across the shoulders maybe, or something about the perfect way it framed his broad chest? The only thing he was one hundred percent sure of as being a significant part of the problem was the way it very definitely accentuated Harry’s narrow waist and all but clung to his exceptional arse whenever the man invariably left his seat at some point during the course of the meeting. As the last one bar Eggsy left in the room, Merlin had actually slapped him upside the back of the head on his way past him to the door. Arthur and the other agents were already long gone but Eggsy had remained in his chair, all but drooling as he imagined the immense pleasure he would take from physically peeling Harry out of those fucking trousers. The swift, sharp and completely unexpected contact successfully ripped him out of a second equally pleasant but alternative scenario, one in which the trousers were actually left on for the duration, a surprised ‘ _Oi!’_ leaving his mouth as he simultaneously whipped his head round to face his assailant and reached up to rub at the back of his skull.

“What the hell was that for?”

“For fuck’s sake, lad, you need to at least learn to pretend like you’re listening. Keeping your eyes off Arthur’s arse and therefore not looking like you just discovered porn for the first time would probably be a good place to start,”

And then Merlin had been out the door, having not once broken stride as he spoke, grumbling an exasperated _‘I’m really not paid anywhere near enough for this shite_ ’ under his breath as if he’d said it a thousand times before. To be fair to the man, it was entirely possible he had, and probably not inaccurate when you considered all that he did and was ultimately responsible for. Eggsy watched him go with a potent blend of embarrassment and amusement as he disappeared out into the hall and presumably headed back to wherever Merlins went when they felt a very strong, very necessary need to bleach their brains. It wasn’t like the Scotsman didn’t already know how he felt about Harry though. That particular cat had been let well and truly out of the bag the day before Harry’s memorial service as Eggsy had drunkenly subjected him to a torrent of bitter, grieving tears and words that could only come from a truly broken heart. They’d never spoken of that day, Merlin’s own tears in response or the truly epic nature of the man’s hugs ever again.

So, he’d felt absolutely fine, and fine some more on day three, and he still felt entirely fine four days post Russia, but then suddenly and entirely without warning the entirety of Kingsman were living in fear of a merciless, invisible, undefeatable foe known only as…seasonal influenza.

And they were dropping like fucking flies.

Bors had been the first to succumb, the mansion put on temporary lockdown as medical scrambled to ascertain what exactly he was afflicted with and the nature of it. Eggsy couldn’t really complain about being sequestered away in Harry’s office for six hours, not when it was finally established that it was ‘just’ the flu. Normal, regular, run of the mill flu and entirely natural in origin, just a strain that hadn’t been factored into medical’s predictions when they were working with Merlin to get this year’s agency vaccine produced. Witnessing several increasingly terse, one-sided conversations between Merlin and various science staff as he did his utmost to win at least _one_ hand of poker against Harry, Eggsy was fully expecting the news that came as the Scot practically flopped into his abandoned chair and pinched the bridge of his nose. Yes, they could manufacture sufficient doses of an appropriate vaccine, but given that Bors had been on home turf for nearly a week and most of that had been spent in the mansion, it would do little good to anyone who had already been exposed. It was simple immunity: people would either get sick over the coming days or they wouldn’t, simple as. The only option from an operational perspective – because Kingsman couldn’t just stop, and sure as shit not because of a winter virus or they’d be a right laughing stock - was to keep those who likely hadn’t been exposed away from HQ until maintenance had carried out a full, anti-viral deep clean protocol, and send home or quarantine anyone who began to show symptoms of the accursed lurgy. The shop would be cleaned in the same way, the filtered, recycled air system in the underground complex treated, purged and replenished, and hopefully within a fortnight or so they’d be back to some semblance of normal.

_“We do have an appropriate protocol then?” Harry asked, this being one of the few areas where he was less well-versed in procedure. They’d never had a biological contaminant issue on Kingsman premises before, that much Eggsy did know._

_“Aye, we do. It’ll take 10 hours to execute fully, but it’s not actually designed for this kind of virus so we’ll likely lose another couple of hours adapting it to ensure we sanitise all the hard surfaces,”_

_“What_ is _it designed for?” Eggsy questioned, curious to know what kind of threat the prior Arthur had planned for only to fucking sell his soul to Valentine and nearly destroy them all._

_“Ebola,” Merlin stated seriously, brow furrowed._

_“Oh. Right. Nice,”_

_Well, what else could he possibly say to that?_

The plan had been all well and good in theory, but no one had anticipated that it would eventually take out over thirty percent of the support staff and half of the field agents in just four days from Bors becoming symptomatic. It would come to pass that the bulk of transmission had already occurred well before the point that the maintenance crews had finished scrubbing and sanitising even the toilet seats to a high, gleaming shine.

It was the morning of day 5, the day after Bors would go down in Kingsman history as being the agent who (henceforth forever to be nicknamed ‘patient zero’ both to his face and behind his back) accidentally triggered the never before used Biological Warfare Lockdown Protocol by having the flu, that Eggsy began to feel a little bit less fine. Waking with a tickle in his throat and a slight tightness in his chest, his first admittedly uncharitable thought was essentially _fuck you very much, Bors, you utter bellend_. He didn’t feel achy, his nose was neither running nor blocked and no headache either, but he did have all the early hallmarks of developing a cough as he climbed out of bed and set about his morning routine. Looking in the mirror as he shaved and did his hair, and after earning at least three thoughtfully intense looks from Harry as he forced down an uncharacteristically meagre breakfast purely because he knew he should, Eggsy didn’t think he looked sick in any way. He didn’t feel in any way like death warmed up the way that flu had a tendency to engender in even the hardiest of souls. The sum total of his ‘symptoms’ was not much in the way of an appetite, and a very occasional cough. So, with that in mind, Eggsy opted to go about his day as normal.

It was day 6 that he awoke with a headache, and he’d turned down Harry’s offer a drink the night before so he didn’t have that on which to attribute blame. Still, no snotty nose, but he was a tad achy, and his chest was a bit tighter. With hindsight, as he desperately called a mid-bout halt to his lunchtime sparring with Roxy because the room just wouldn’t stop spinning and it felt like someone had turned the heating up to solar surface temperature, it really would have been a good idea to just take himself directly to medical at that point. Had he told Roxy what was up, she would have agreed and likely escorted him there herself. But all he really needed was to lie down for half an hour, yeah? Catch his breath. If he still felt unwell after that, he’d go and get it officially confirmed that Bors was the root of all evil then slope back to Stanhope Mews to sweat it out and be miserable whilst leaving the massively diminished Kingsman ranks to fend for themselves. Even though the sad fact was that they barely had enough upright technical staff left, let alone agents, to change a lightbulb right now, never mind guide the agents that _were_ still standing and out saving the world through a variety of intense missions. That’s why, Eggsy told himself, that’s why he’d go take a nap, regroup and then report for his assigned stint as temporary handler for an irritatingly well Tristan in sunny Bora Bora.

Except when he woke three hours later, Eggsy couldn’t think of much at all, let alone get himself to medical. The one thing he did know was that he was a dick, alright? He was a dick, a total idiot, and despite all his skills and guile and training, he was pretty sure he was in serious trouble.

_Need you, Harry._


	5. Chapter Four

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry has dinner. And a living nightmare.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter for now. I'm not sure of a posting schedule, but tempting though it is to throw it all out here and run screaming back into the abyss, I feel like it would be a good idea to spread out the three further completed chapters I have. Remember that earlier chapter note about medical inaccuracies? It very definitely applies here too. I know quite a bit about medical stuff in real life, including what would actually happen in the scenario that follows, but it's very much a case of story first, accuracy second. There is medical fact here, but it's buried beneath a bunch of stuff that just worked better for where I want Harry at.
> 
> Kudos and all comments are gratefully received.

If it were possible to die from boredom, Harry was indisputably certain that he would have done so four times over in the last hour as a bare minimum.

He had long been aware of the bureaucracy required to underpin an organisation such as Kingsman, but it was one thing to have a passing familiarity with the red tape and arse-kissing involved and another entirely to be the person who had to endure and oversee the bulk of it. In his six month tenure as Arthur he had come to find that there were _some_ positives to the position, not least a far more reliable schedule that meant he got to spend most nights in his own home, his own bed, but even furnished with the opportunities that brought to spend more time with Eggsy (or surreptitiously providing for Eggsy, caring for Eggsy, thinking about Eggsy…), the positives could never outweigh the urge he felt at times like these to make good use of the antique silverware. The only thing staying his hand at this precise moment in time from disembowelling the prick next to him with a soup spoon, beyond manners and the mess doing so would make of the carpet, was the glower being sent in his direction by Merlin that suggested the other man knew _exactly_ what Harry was thinking and wholeheartedly did not approve.

But, dear God, the meeting was pointless.

It was nothing more than a thinly veiled excuse for the two Lordships currently in his company to eat and drink on the Kingsman tab and endlessly self-congratulate themselves for ‘their part’ in saving the world. And it irked Harry no end that he had to sit and play nice purely because they had offered a small proportion of the backing necessary to keep the agency buoyant in the next financial year. A million pounds was a veritable drop in the ocean when it came to the funds required to keep Kingsman operational, particularly in light of the current Knights’ collective propensity for blowing things up, but these two offensive old coots had enjoyed a certain amount of nepotism under Chester King’s rule, and though Harry would be more than happy – downright eager, even - to disavow them of the idea that they were anything more than useless, bigoted old men with more money than sense, the fact was that the Knights _did_ keep blowing things up, and therefore Kingsman _did_ need their financial support. Ergo, Harry settled for throwing back half of his glass of wine in two mouthfuls (oh, the _sacrilege!)_ and raised a challenging eyebrow at an equally inwardly peeved but outwardly stone-faced Merlin, all but daring him to comment. What he received in direct response was a barely concealed smirk, the other man well aware that the two individuals beside them were prime examples of why Harry had defied his parents’ lifestyle and expectations to join Kingsman in the first place.

The food was exceptionally good as always, but he found himself struggling to eat all the same and he wasn’t sure if it was the company or something else entirely to blame. He strongly suspected it was a mixture of both, and that in turn led his mind to wander to Eggsy, unbidden but not at all unwelcome or unusual. As he pushed a piece of fondant potato around his plate, movements lacklustre and as lacking in presence as Harry wished he actually was, he made a wholly unnecessary mental note to check in with the younger man once they were done and see how he was. There’d been nothing truly explicit to suggest that the other man was falling sick with Bors’ unintentional affront to upcoming Christmas, but Harry had watched with growing consternation as Eggsy had lost his appetite over the last 48 hours. If there was one thing you could depend on, it was the younger man’s ability to eat anything put in front of him and still have room for seconds, so to see him leave food on his plate at dinner the night before _and_ turn down dessert was something that sat uncomfortably to the point that it was a physical sensation. In the early days of knowing each other a similar ache had lodged in his chest, though that one had been very firmly rooted in Harry’s certainty that the lad had routinely gone hungry when he’d needed food the most to grow and thrive. This different but similar feeling, something slightly sharp and hollow, had nestled just beneath his sternum and refused to budge at breakfast the day before, and it had only grown since awakening that morning to the sound of a brief coughing fit from across the hall. He’d ‘casually’ enquired at breakfast, naturally, but Eggsy had just shrugged and said he had a slight tickle but otherwise felt fine, and if someone were to ask, Harry wouldn’t be able to give an actual answer as to why that hadn’t reassured him in the slightest beyond the fact that it had been said whilst the other man eyed his toast disdainfully. It wasn’t that he believed Eggsy to be lying, and indeed the younger man looked entirely well and normal, if a little tired, but in addition to the niggle in his ribcage there was a new, constant itch of inexplicable concern under his skin that he could currently find no way to appease. Stabbing one of his dinner companions with a salad fork likely wouldn’t do much in that respect either, but it might help him feel a tad better that he was stuck here when he really wanted to be elsewhere. Anywhere else, really, _dear God,_ _anywhere._

Unfortunately though, the inescapable reality of the situation was that he was stuck here until dinner was done and the old codgers buggered off back to Westminster or the fourth circle of hell or wherever else it was their pompous, greedy arses originated from. And Harry? Harry was a gentleman and now Kingsman’s Arthur, and had _always_ been a consummate professional no matter his personal feelings, so despite the way he continued to fantasise about an increasing array of methods with which to fatally despatch the pair using just the items at hand, he also continued to engage and smile and make all the right noises to keep them onside and supportive of the agency and its altruistic aims. Merlin was present to provide the detail-light but otherwise genuine gravitas to the technological element of their cash donations, but also because _you know precisely how I feel yet you’re still making me sit through this, so you get to suffer too, you Scottish bastard._

On reflection, much, much later, the fact that Merlin was in attendance when a sensation akin to being skewered through the chest with a red-hot poker hit and briefly rendered him mute would prove to be a genuine blessing. Dessert had just been served, _finally_ , some obnoxiously ornate chocolate thing, and Harry had found himself unable to tackle even a mouthful as something profound and urgent and _wrong_ had suddenly and unexpectedly swelled unbearably inside him. Every instinct he had screamed threat and danger, despite the fact that he knew he was safe, he knew there was no threat in the room. But that feeling? That was something he had learnt over time and through unfortunate experience to never ignore when it became apparent. The sharp, hollow thing in his chest flared into something incredibly tight and genuinely painful and _fuck, something’s wrong, where’s Eggsy? Something’s wrong._

His chair had gone back with a sharp clatter as he abruptly stood, managing to reign in his pain and panic just long enough to smooth down his suit jacket and force out a polite _“Would you please excuse me?”_ to those at the table, not that he actually gave a single fuck whether they would or not. He was self-aware enough to recognise that he wasn’t thinking straight, but that didn’t detract sufficiently from the urgency and adrenaline surging uncontrollably through his veins to stop him from striding to the door and out into the hall. Once safely outside the room, he briefly braced against the wall on his forearm to try and get control of himself.

It didn’t help.

Well, it did, in so far as Harry became acutely aware that something _was genuinely very wrong_ , but it didn’t help lessen the fear and pain that swelled in almost overpowering waves. He made no conscious decision to move but move he still did, feet instinctively turning him and taking him at a brusque pace in the direction of the gym even as he registered Merlin’s appearance in the hall behind him, the other man calling his name in both confusion and concern. He wouldn’t know until sometime later that it was the fleeting, controlled look of sheer panic that had crossed his face that prompted his oldest friend to make his excuses and follow, because it was a look Merlin had so very rarely ever seen on Harry that it had legitimately terrified the other man in turn. Thank God.

The urge to run swelled, but Harry – _Arthur_ – quashed it, aware of nothing but the sound of his own heartbeat thudding urgently in his ears and the sensation of his feet on the floor as he kept moving. He might not consciously know where he was going but his body didn’t hesitate, the agony in his chest only intensifying as he drew closer to the Knights’ personal quarters. Turning down the corridor that housed Eggsy’s on-site rooms, Harry _had_ briefly broken into a jog then, quickly followed by an unconscious sprint until he was outside the other man’s door and pounding on it repeatedly with the flat of his hand.

There was no response.

He was there though, he knew it, he could _feel_ it, so Harry pounded on the door again, called the other man’s name.

Still nothing.

An interminable few seconds, a tap of his glasses and an extraordinarily terse ‘ _Merlin_!’ later found the door over-ridden remotely without question, and then Harry was inside and assessing what he found with the instinctual knack that had served him so well in the field. The bed was empty but recently vacated, curtains partially pulled to provide darkness, Eggsy’s Kingsman’s glasses and watch abandoned on the bedside cabinet. Relieved to find no immediate threat, Harry had a brief moment of confusion because _Jesus Christ,_ it still hurt so badly, but then he quickly crossed to the en suite bathroom and every nightmare he’d ever had – and there were dozens - about losing Eggsy was suddenly coming true in real life.

Eggsy was sprawled on his side across the bathroom floor, knees drawn up in a semi-foetal position and barely conscious though somehow stubbornly clinging on all the same. There was an unhealthy flush to his face, a thin sheen of sweat over his brow, but it was the desperate, disjointed action of his bare chest that spoke of the true severity of the situation. In the split second it took Harry to process what he was seeing, the younger man coughed and spluttered wetly, bright red passing his lips to both spray into the air as a fine mist and trail down his chin where it dripped onto the white, tiled floor and added to an existing pool of blood.

Harry couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe.

_Shit, shit, SHIT._

_“…’rry…”_

It was glazed green eyes slowly settling on him and the slurred yet somehow relieved attempt at his name that had the older man free of his momentary, shocked trance in the doorway and moving again, the world suddenly and sickeningly turning once more. Harry shushed him instinctively as he quickly crouched at his side, left hand sweeping over his fevered forehead up into his hair and the right cupping his cheek despite the blood. You didn’t need any kind of medical training to know that the situation was dire and he had plenty, but in some ways that made his choice far more straightforward: either medical came to him or he took Eggsy to medical, there was nothing in between. Everything he knew about the human body (and that was actually a substantial amount, because you couldn’t strategically and systematically break one if you didn’t understand how it worked) told him that whilst he didn’t have a clue what had happened, the younger man needed immediate intervention. If he opted to call for medical then critical treatment time could be lost in the absence of necessary equipment and drugs, and it would double the amount of time taken to actually get him down to the infirmary when that, with its life support equipment and operating rooms, was exactly where he needed to be. Eggsy needed to be there ten minutes ago, if not sooner. Even in the total, utter horror of the moment, the situational assessment was automatic and ran through his mind so quickly it went virtually unnoticed, the final outcome ultimately a no-brainer anyway. Which was why, after a second’s pause to try and shove some of the threatening emotion down lest he actually lose the plot, Harry quickly but carefully scooped the younger man up into his arms bridal style and tucked him securely against his chest, making sure to keep him as upright as he could to support his breathing, before pushing up onto his feet. In less than thirty seconds from finding Eggsy, he was already striding back out of the room.

“Knight Red,” His tone was sharp, but he made no attempt to hide the accompanying note of fear, wasn’t sure he could if he tried.

“ _Medical are already waiting, I’m on my way to C6. Quick as you can, Harry, keep his head up,”_

And oh, but Harry actually really did fucking love that man. Swear to God with no hint of a lie. He’d been aware on some level that the Scot had likely monitored his feed after releasing the door, but he’d never been more grateful in his entire career for the obviously tight but otherwise calm tone in his ear than he was at that moment with a critical Eggsy in his arms. And after 20 years in international espionage, most of them with Merlin as his handler, that was really, truly saying something indeed.

Depleted in numbers as they were, the halls were deserted in this part of the mansion and that worked to Harry’s advantage as he took the quickest route that would get them down to the subterranean level. The man in his arms was shaking, fine tremors racking his body as he blatantly fought for breath, making Merlin’s foresight and technical intervention to have the lift waiting for them all the more welcome and _God-fucking-bless animals, small children and men named Merlin._ The doors slid closed behind them with a hiss and they almost immediately began to move without Harry needing to do a thing, which was just as well as in that moment Eggsy began coughing violently again and a worrying volume of blood spattered against his jacket lapel in the process. The deep, wracking fit ended in a wet and heart-breaking moan of pain that saw Harry solidly rubbing his cheek against the crown of his head in a desperate effort to offer whatever small comfort he could.

“It’s alright, I have you. Just hold on now, keep breathing for me,”

_Please, just keep breathing._

“H-arry…”

But Harry gently shushed him again, more than surprised that the younger man was still conscious let alone speaking given the horrific, wet, bubbling sound that accompanied every jarring but increasingly laboured inhale. Impatiently descending into the bowels of Kingsman, he readjusted his grip as if holding him even more tightly, more closely, might somehow help, but irrationally regretted that decision when instead the other man finally, though not entirely unexpectedly, went limp against his chest just as the doors slid open again.

_He’s still breathing, he’s still breathing, you can feel it and you can hear him. Get moving, Hart. Come on._

Harry’s muscles were beginning to fatigue, arms aching with Eggsy’s not insubstantial weight, and as he strode out of the elevator and into the labyrinthine grey passages, for the first time ever he found himself abstractly lamenting the other man’s phenomenal physique. Rounding the next corner, there were staff going about their business in the corridor but there was also Merlin further down, ramrod straight and waiting for them and Harry urged his legs to move even just a tiny bit faster as the other man spotted them.

“Watch your backs!”

The shout coloured with brogue was urgently authoritative, unyielding, and had the effect of Moses on the red sea: the half a dozen staff between Harry and the junction that would lead them towards medical quickly parted in unquestioning obedience, a couple throwing surprised glances over their shoulders as he all but ploughed past them and down the hall.

_Still breathing, still breathing._

The wet sound was increasing, audible on both the inhale and exhale, a mist of unpleasant warmth spraying Harry’s throat with alarming frequency now and the quiet, shocked murmurs left in their wake telling him there was probably a substantial amount of blood coating his skin and his clothes. Agents being hauled down the corridor by colleagues was not exactly a common occurrence, but nor was it unheard of given the hours that were dedicated to perfecting hand to hand technique and weapons training. There had been more than one accidental stabbing, more than one extremely bloody broken nose and severe concussion. The reactions he was peripherally aware of spoke of a sight that those present would not forget in a hurry, one beyond the incongruity of Arthur doing his best impression of an active field agent to anyone who didn’t know his history as Galahad.

Harry concentrated on keeping his pace and didn’t spare Merlin a glance as he turned when he reached C6, the other man immediately falling into perfect step beside him as he hurried them down the next corridor, keeping others out of their way with an outstretched arm and a sharp ‘Move’ as necessary. Another turn, another corridor and they were almost there now, the whole journey taking less than four minutes from start to finish. Suddenly they were pushing through double doors…and here there were bright lights and endless noise and several pairs of hands reaching for his burden even as he shrugged them off and so very carefully laid Eggsy on the waiting gurney himself, Merlin helping him to ease the younger man down as people descended on the situation from seemingly every corner.

_Still breathing. You did it, it’s alright, it’s ok._

Except it wasn’t ok, and Harry absolutely did not want to step back as the assembled team of medics instantly set about hooking Eggsy up to monitors and oxygen, calling out numbers and initial observations that terrified him. Own chest heaving with exertion, bloodied hands at his sides now visibly shaking, a low noise rumbled up from his belly and into his throat, unable to control the instinctive desire to bare his teeth as he watched other people touch Eggsy, a hurt Eggsy, his Eggsy –

“Harry? Harry. Goddamnit…Arthur, enough!”

Harry blinked slowly, Merlin’s voice stern but dark eyes worried as he held his hands up in a placating gesture, the taller man very carefully insinuating himself between Harry and the medical staff urgently going about their job. They might be solely focused on Eggsy, but it was nigh on impossible not to be unnerved by the fact that there was an alpha, who also just happened to be an elite, highly skilled killer, clearly on the verge of having some kind of possessive breakdown in the immediate vicinity.

Belatedly realising what he was doing, Harry blinked again and urged himself to take a deep breath. He managed to gain enough of his wits about him in doing so to consciously cease the loud, threatening growl doing a very good job of setting the staff on edge and force his face to smooth out into something a little less feral than his current snarl. It took further effort to swallow the instinctive resistance that surged alongside a strong desire to break Merlin’s fingers, though it wasn’t in any way personal, but he did allow the other man to use his physical presence then – hands still raised non-threateningly, though his underlying stance spoke of being combat ready - to carefully corral him backwards and further away from the bed. His senses came back to him one by one with the increased distance, able to see and hear once more beyond the narrow spectrum of Eggsy accosted by unfamiliar hands and his own heartbeat, and he knew he was going to be thoroughly mortified at some point in the near future about his behaviour, but it was still the least of his concerns as he watched the organised chaos unfold over his friend’s shoulder. He could feel the heavy weight of Merlin’s stare assessing him but couldn’t meet it, and though the unease and worry palpably remained, the other man lowered his hands after a few seconds and turned slightly to afford them both a better view of what was happening, apparently certain enough that there wouldn’t be any immediate need to try and subdue Harry to lower his own threat level.

One of the doctors, the young, dark haired woman that Harry recognised had examined Eggsy six days earlier, was currently shaking her head with a frown whilst listening to his chest. Yanking the stethoscope free of her ears she gave concise instructions to roll him onto his left side, demanded suction and more oxygen and IV access all over a soundtrack of blaring alarms and the professional exchange of information that was necessary to try and stabilise the situation. Harry didn’t need her medical degree to know that Eggsy was effectively drowning in his own blood. He’d seen it before more times than he cared to consider, caused a similar effect in others himself on an almost equal number of occasions.

“Not the flu,” He stated without looking away, tone rough from the uncharacteristic posturing and nearing broken.

The Quartermaster’s expression was dark, the predominant, pressing issue being Eggsy, but worry for both the man in the bed _and_ the one stood beside him causing a furrow between his brows and his mouth to downturn even more than usual as he glanced towards Harry for a brief moment.

“Not the flu,” Merlin agreed.

_Well, shit._


	6. Chapter Five

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merlin ponders, reflects and has a tete a tete with Harry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always feel that Merlin is a bit of a 2D character in TSS with a lack of depth that upsets me, so here's my effort to pad him out a bit more and give him some history. A bit more medical stuff within, although there's a little more factual accuracy and some of it is reasonably technical - I'm hoping that even if the terms are a bit much, the gist of what's going on carries through. Also, so begins a slow, drip feed expansion of the rules in my ABO universe. I can't say for sure, but I'm reasonably certain that the fic is going to run to around 20 chapters when all is said and done. My 'plan' originally was a one shot, then five chapters when that went spectacularly out the window, and now I'm just quietly shaking my head in horror. Oh well. 
> 
> Thank you to all those that have kudosed and commented - much obliged!

Fucking hell, he was tired.

When he’d first joined Kingsman, overly serious for his fresh-faced youth and with a gloriously full head of hair, he’d known that the hours were long and the work taxing but he’d figured that the pace would be bearable with scheduled, compulsory downtime. He’d thought that, having survived two thirds of Knight selection before an agonising and untimely rupture to his cruciate ligament kaiboshed his chances, he knew what he was in for when they approached him with the offer of a technical position instead of just turning him loose. He’d been wrong on both counts. It actually turned out that it was incredibly hard to rest when for four days straight you’d drunk endless amounts of coffee and had a shit tonne of sudden, unexpected adrenaline spikes courtesy of agents nearly getting themselves killed, with nothing more than catnaps to keep you functioning. That for the first twelve months or so it was accompanied by a somewhat bitter and pervasive sense of envious unfairness that he was behind a desk when he’d been on course to be the next Tristan hadn’t really helped matters either, but he had Harry to thank for eventually knocking that shit out of him and making him realise the true worth of what he was doing. It also hadn’t really prepared him for the impossible upshift in frequent exhaustion and frustration brought with steadily moving up the ranks from junior handler to second in command. After 12 years as Merlin, it still struck him on a regular basis that he probably should have invested his inheritance in a life-time supply of heavy duty stimulants rather than the stock market, but at least the returns meant he could easily afford to buy his bodyweight in really, _really_ good coffee on a weekly basis whilst still satisfying his own carefully controlled need to take unnecessary risks. His current mug of industrial strength black gold was just about lukewarm, and though even the thought of drinking it was enough to give his poor heart pre-emptive palpitations, he dutifully swallowed it all the same whilst going over Eggsy’s medical reports for a third time. If today _was_ to be the day he finally, inevitably keeled over from caffeine-induced arrhythmia, at least being sequestered in medical meant he was in the right place and only two doors down from the defibrillator in resus.

Few people realised just how rigorously the tech he authorised and personally created was tested, subjecting it to anything he could imagine a Knight might do to it or use it for long before it entered field beta stage, and he never guided an agent into any situation (or sanctioned any of his staff to do so) unless he was as certain as humanly possible that it was essential to the success of the mission, because unnecessary, unanticipated risk was what got the people he was responsible for killed. It was that knowledge that occasionally made the starburst shaped scar spanning Harry Hart’s left temple and disappearing up into his hairline so difficult for him to look at. He’d lost Knights, (only a handful but that was still a handful too many), and authorised actions that had knowingly led to the deaths of numerous innocent civilians when there was no other possible way to save the world from worse, but it was Harry’s scar and the memory of how he’d received it that prompted guilt where he’d easily – perhaps some would say too easily - reconciled almost everything else in his career. Merlin had messed up with Kentucky and Valentine. It was a fact brought home when the chaos of V-Day had died down enough that he had no choice but to review the files and as temporary Arthur justify Kingsman’s actions before the judicial oversight panel. The panel hadn’t found him, or Kingsman as a whole, to be at fault, quite the opposite in fact, but the Scot knew that there were things he should have done differently.

Hindsight was an unforgiving bitch like that.

Friendship, true friendship and trust, was a rarity in their line of work and considered by most to be an avoidable liability. The fact that his relationship with Harry had at some point transcended ill-advised (and completely unintended) friendship and inexplicably entered into the realms of something closer to family, made almost getting the man killed something he suspected he would never entirely forgive himself for. Which was why he was going through Eggsy’s notes yet again, despite the fact that he had the entire damn thing practically memorised; he wasn’t going to miss something as obvious as Harry getting made at Valentine’s dinner table a second time and fail both men once more. His fondness for Excalibur was grudging but entirely genuine, much like his fondness for Harry, and in no way linked to the fact that the older man was so obviously in love with him that at times it did actually make him want to throw up. He’d been increasingly impressed as he’d watched Eggsy progress through the Lancelot trials, but the turning point had come as they’d faced each other on the lawn that day and he’d done exactly as asked where most other candidates would have backed down, getting up in Merlin’s face in the belief that he was expendable. It had internally annoyed and amused the Quartermaster in equal measure, because trust Harry Hart to put forward a fucking attitudinal clone of his younger, wannabe lepidopterist self, all hot-headed in the face of perceived injustice. The mission to Valentine’s bunker had only watered that seed of respect, and he should have known then that it wouldn’t bode well for his expertly cultivated reputation as an unapproachable, grumpy bastard. As feared, in the weeks that followed, Eggsy had seen straight through the practiced facade and they’d ultimately ended up in an odd relationship where Merlin was suddenly Handler, substitute Mentor and some sort of snarky-but-grudgingly-kind uncle all rolled into one as they’d both grieved for a Harry they didn’t know wasn’t dead.

He’d grown to be an exceptional agent in the time since then, skills honed through practice and effort to a truly spectacular level, although occasionally over-eager to blow things up. Beyond his professional evaluation? Merlin had found that Eggsy was an annoyingly lively, loyal and almost unbearably likeable cocky little shit, so to see him in his current state made his stoic soul do strange but unfortunately familiar things that he’d really rather it didn’t. Throw in his acute awareness of Harry’s current fear and angst, and the man felt a veritable shit-storm of unwanted emotions and worry that predictably made him uncomfortable and would likely see him at the bottom of a bottle when this new nightmare was finally over. He would get _utterly_ pissed, but not before locking the two sources of said shit-storm in his office and refusing to let them out until they finally stopped twatting about, because the inability both of them had to see what was so clearly right in front of their faces was absolutely doing his head in now. He supposed he could take matters into his own hands on that front and tell either one or both what he knew, but he had that information in confidence and despite the infuriating, near farcical nature of the current situation, both men’s trust was something that Merlin valued above almost everything else in a personal capacity. Being completely honest, it was less likely that he’d help the situation than end up braining one of them partway through any intervention he was directly involved in anyway, because Harry was a stubborn bloody bastard at the best of times, Eggsy tended to run his mouth when defensive and Merlin’s patience was very definitely finite. And it wasn’t like he hadn’t tried to get Harry to see that the lad loved him too, only to be rewarded with the hangover from hell for his troubles and gross mental imagery he _still_ hadn’t been able to purge.

It had taken almost 20 minutes for the medical team to stabilise Eggsy enough for them to take stock of the situation and begin to analyse why he was bleeding internally as opposed to just trying to keep him alive. He and Harry had remained throughout, neither man speaking as half a pint of blood was forcibly sucked out of Eggsy’s lungs and he was pumped full of saline via a central line to force a whacking great dose of intravenous transexamic acid to where it was needed in his body in an attempt to stop the bleeding. There’d been a brief but unpleasant episode where it looked likely that not only was the coagulant not going to work, but Merlin might also have to forcibly remove Harry from the room, and quite possibly unconscious. The medics had sedated Eggsy, but the lad had somehow still managed to come to as the doctor was in the middle of performing a rapid sequence intubation, eyes flying open in panic with a laryngoscope, partially passed endotracheal tube and a suction catheter lodged in his throat. Of course, his immediate reflex had naturally been to fight and he’d hoarsely cried out around the obstructions – a sound Merlin would very happily live his whole life never hearing again out of any human being – and then the monitors had gone bananas and the lad was gagging loudly, three nurses reacting to pin him down. As the doctor quickly withdrew the equipment in response to Eggsy’s thrashing and concurrently plummeting oxygen levels, it turned out to be quite fortuitous that he had come to. The moment his throat was clear, he’d twisted to the side as much as he was able and promptly heaved up what looked like a black golf ball but was actually a blood clot that would have almost certainly blocked the breathing tube she’d been just about to place. And had that happened? It was entirely possible that the lad might have died.

The whole incident had lasted less than a minute, but Harry was practically vibrating with helpless anger by the end of it, lip curled and eyes flashing dangerously. No growling this time, but Merlin could see he’d cut crescent shapes into his own palms with how tightly he’d clenched his fists in an effort to keep control of himself. For his own part, Merlin had spent the entire time calculating the likelihood of being able to get to a sedative and inject the man before he ripped someone’s throat out versus the odds of successfully knocking him out with a single punch if you took into account the titanium plate that comprised half of his skull. As the medics had quickly rolled a gasping Eggsy back onto his side because he was once more clearing fresh claret and Harry finally seemed to have reached breaking point, Merlin had quickly re-evaluated and opted for plan C instead. Touching the man under the current circumstances was a hefty risk, but it was worth a try because he really didn’t want to get hand-to-hand physical with Harry if it could be helped. So, he’d pressed his palm squarely over his blood-stained clothes to hold him in place and sought out his gaze, voice low and tone broking no argument but still in no way unkind, because he might not be mated, he might not be in love with Eggsy, but he _did_ understand.

“Get a grip, Harry, or wait outside. You’re not helping anyone right now, least of all yourself and certainly not the lad,”

To which, after a moment of stunned, indignant goldfishing, Harry had visibly deflated in response and Merlin had once more stepped closer to his side. Not in fear of what he might do this time, but because solidarity and his presence were the only support he could really offer.

The bleeding had stopped after another minute, thankfully, and the second intubation attempt had been successful, though they opted not to increase the amount of sedative used given Eggsy unexpectedly finding consciousness had probably saved his life. Amelia – the doctor – had come to them once certain that he was at least temporarily stable, leaving the nurses to secure all the wires and tubes and clean the lad up somewhat as she quizzed Harry over anything he might have noticed or seen during the last few days. There had been a gentleness to her tone that under different circumstances would have been guaranteed to have Harry bristling, but he seemed not to notice as he quietly recounted the sparse indicators of something being amiss that gave them very little to go on. His gaze never left the younger man for more than a second or two at a time. It was related to the dart, it had to be and they all knew it, but the further tests run in the preceding days on the blood sample taken on the plane had supported Merlin’s initial analysis and yielded nothing out of the ordinary. The presence of a high fever meant that the fresh sample already on the way to the labs would be run for viral and bacterial culture where the first hadn’t, but that would take time and no one needed to point out that Eggsy might not have much of that. His vitals were poor, he was periodically bleeding internally for reasons unknown – the lad was physically wrecked right now and time was something he definitely didn’t have in abundance if they couldn’t get a handle on what was going on and treat it appropriately.

The medical reports weren’t helping on that front any more with a third reading than they had a first and Merlin ran a hand over his head as he finally dropped the file down onto his commandeered desk in surrender. At best it would take 36 hours for the preliminary blood analysis to come back, even as an urgent request, and so far they were only 12 hours into that wait.

“Non-consensual drugging isn’t very gentlemanly,”

He’d hoped they’d be at least 14 hours in before Harry came round.

“I’m not a gentleman. And I’m not going to apologise,” Merlin offered quietly but sure, “You needed the rest. He’s still stable, Amelia has been updating me every twenty minutes, and I could have immediately reversed the effect if anything changed,”

The ‘ _you know I would have’_ was unnecessary and therefore left unsaid as he watched Harry half-open his eyes in the purposefully dim lamplight and focus on the ceiling.

“How’s the head?” he asked when the silence stretched out between them to border on something almost uncomfortable.

Lying on his back on the sofa, Harry shifted thoughtfully, pointing and flexing his shoeless feet to stretch the muscles in his legs before easing himself upright and slowly swinging into a sitting position.

“Surprisingly clear,” he bit out, the words clipped though lacking any truly significant heat or bite, so Merlin assumed that he would be relatively quickly forgiven for his transgression. “The pain is gone though. R&D’s new compound?”

The Scot hummed an agreement, dark eyes watching Harry quickly pull himself together. He figured he had all of about thirty seconds to do this before the other man was up and gone to be at Eggsy’s bedside, and despite the fact that part of him would quite genuinely rather get his undercarriage waxed than have this conversation, it had to be done.

“And the pain in your chest?”

Anyone who didn’t know Harry and know him well would have missed his reaction, the way he froze up completely for a microsecond before his gaze bore into Merlin’s with the intensity of a laser, the quiet question hanging between them with the weight of a lead balloon. The quartermaster steeled himself for an outburst, some fervent denial accompanied by a sharp insult or two because being caught on the back foot had a tendency to make Harry impressively rude, but found himself both surprised and relieved when instead his friend simply lifted his gaze to the ceiling and swallowed heavily. His hands slowly ran over the fabric of his suit trousers atop his thighs, a nervous fidget of sorts, and in combination the actions proved Merlin’s hypothesis. _Oh, Harry, you bloody wanker._

“Still the same,” he finally, finally answered, tone soft and tinged with both wonder and emotional pain, before lowering his eyes and levelling a hard look at Merlin once more, “Which is the only reason I’m sat here still. And that I haven’t already knocked you clean on your arse,”

Merlin nodded his understanding, once more feeling every year his age and then some. The decision to slip a mickey into Harry’s water hadn’t been taken lightly, but he felt absolutely zero regret about doing it, not when you considered that the other man would have refused to leave Eggsy’s side despite a crippling headache and the huge emotional upheaval that had undoubtedly triggered it. The painkillers Harry used to manage the spectacular migraines left over from his run in with a nine millimetre bullet tended to make him sleep like the dead in the first instance, only to then leave him sedated and foggy when he awoke, so as midnight had approached and he’d watched the other man do his best to pretend there wasn’t a jackhammer suddenly resident in his skull accompanied by a definite urge to vomit, he’d known there was no way he would voluntarily take something and actually rest. The most recent, approved invention from Research and Development was a colourless, tasteless sedative complete with reversal serum and a handy side line in pain relief, something that was going to be a very useful addition to the field provisions going forward.

“It certainly explains why you very nearly broke your dick the other month. But Christ, Harry, why didn’t you tell me -“

“I didn’t know,” Harry interrupted him quickly, voice low and rough, “It may sound particularly naive given my feelings and our living arrangements, and granted, I had noticed I was aware of him in ways I’ve never been with anyone else, but I had no idea I’d actually… _connected._ Not like that at least, not until I knew something was wrong at dinner and then started growling like a bloody teenager once down here. Fuck, I honestly didn’t _know_ , Merlin,”

There could be no doubting the truth of his words. He sounded stunned and confused in a way that not even Harry with his exceptional acting skills could fake, expression echoing the sentiments as he spoke. Aside from which, he had no reason to lie to Merlin, not about this, and if there was one thing that he was aware of when it came to Harry it was that, despite having seemingly preternatural observational skills, he was blind as a bat at times where his own heart was involved. It might sound ridiculous to many, but it was _entirely_ plausible that he’d formed a partial bond with Eggsy and either not realised it or repressed the knowledge on a subconscious level. Opposite him, the man in question scrubbed his hands over his face, mouth drawing down to leave him look defeated.

“What’s it like?”

The uncharacteristically gentle question was part curiosity, because the odds of Merlin ever finding out for himself – just like every other Kingsman operating at roundtable level – were incredibly slim. Having an almost non-existent chance of forming a bond with someone was part of the package you knowingly agreed to when you took your oath, alongside poor sleep and a high likelihood of stress-induced ulcers. It wasn’t all endless excitement and exotic travel. The surprised huff of laughter the question received was the other reason to ask, pleased to see the other man’s lost look leave.

“Bloody pervert,” Harry griped, but he was smiling slightly now rather than looking like the sky was falling, expression softening further as he thought about it. “It’s warmth and comfort, I suppose. When I’m near him it feels like all’s right with the world even if it’s not. I thought it was just the effect he has on me, but on reflection, it’s far deeper than that. I also thought I was simply picking up on his body language, but it turns out I probably have a vague sense of if he’s tired or hungry, a faint reflection of how he’s feeling if we’re in close enough proximity. Now though?” he paused, face falling once more. “I’d really rather this wasn’t the way I’d realised, for obvious reasons, but also because it hurts more than anything I’ve ever experienced and on every possible level,”

“Even Tehran?”

“Even Tehran,” Harry agreed quietly.

That told Merlin all he needed to know about what an injured mate felt like, even more so given that the bond in question was one-sided and likely only a quarter of the strength it would be if they _were_ actually mated and reciprocally bound. As Galahad, Harry had come home from the Tehran debacle with injuries from being systematically tortured that had taken months of physio and counselling to recover from. It had left Merlin with frequent nightmares from being the one helpless to do anything but be a reassuring voice in his ear as he’d received them.

“I really am a colossal idiot,” he said, voice still quiet but now with a scoffing undertone, “Fundamentally shit for a spy, no?”

Merlin chuckled.

“Aye, Harry. You are. But though it physically pains me to say it, I wouldn’t want you any other way,”

_God help me._


	7. Chapter Six

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Harry begins a vigil, Eggsy isn't doing that well and Merlin's done-ometer creeps a little higher. Harry's POV.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A huge thank you for all the kudos and comments I've received so far. I'd also invite you to say a big thank you to @nightblackbird, because it was thanks to their very kind comment last night that I found the power to sit up into the wee hours and beat Chapter 8 Harry into submission to finally finish what has been singularly THE most uncooperative chapter in any fic I've ever written. Without them, there is simply no way I'd have updated this quickly, because my self imposed rule is that I have to have two completed chapters in hand at any given time, and Harry was being a truly dedicated little shit for the better part of the last week. Go figure. 
> 
> More medical stuff in this one, so my standard disclaimer about it not being entirely medically accurate once more applies, though as always there is fact layered beneath the fiction. Oh, and advance warning that here be a CLIFFHANGER. Mwahahahha. Evil Charlie is evil.
> 
> Enjoy!

The medical staff had moved Eggsy into one of the rooms geared to intensive care during his unplanned ‘nap’, still close to the operating theatres and as well-equipped as resus, but with a little more in the way of creature comforts for both staff and those visiting.  _When_  Eggsy began to recover, he’d be moved to a room that catered more to his comfort too, but for now there was nothing he required other than medical equipment and dedicated care: a potted fern and framed print of a seascape mattered very little at this stage. They didn’t matter much in later stages either from experience, but they at least gave you something else to stare at in an attempt to fend off a potentially fatal case of boredom. Shifting for the twentieth time in an attempt to relieve the discomfort in his lower spine and the painful numbness in his backside, Harry made a mental note to scrap these abominations masquerading as chairs at the first opportunity, because whilst vigils were both impractical and generally frowned upon, there were occasions where someone would sit in one for more than ten minutes. He knew that Eggsy had spent hours at a time sat in one at his own bedside, both during selection and on his return from the dead, and whilst he was a lot younger and his body therefore more forgiving, it was a bona fide miracle he’d been able to even walk afterwards if Harry’s current experience was anything to go by. Not that he was complaining, not really. The chairs were absolutely shit, no lie, but as long as his back hurt incessantly it meant he was at Eggsy’s side, and it helped him keep his mind off possible alternate endings to what had happened less than 24 hours ago to find him there. And what had happened since. It was when he least expected it that he found his imagination conjuring up far too realistic scenarios of a different outcome, all of them ending in Harry getting there too late and Eggsy dying. Sometimes alone on the floor of his en suite, sometimes in Harry’s arms, sometimes as he stood impotently in medical, but they all shared the same thing, and that was the ability to make Harry’s heart race and a lump form in his throat if he didn’t distract himself.

 

There’d been two further bleeds in Eggsy’s lungs since Harry had taken root early that morning. The first had been relatively small, ‘minor’ in fact by medical standards, but no less grim as he’d watched them put suction down the ventilation tube to clear the normally precious, dark red liquid. The second had been far from minor just an hour earlier, the first indication being slowly falling oxygen levels, increased heart rate and a visible decrease in what little colour the younger man had in his face beyond the flush of fever over his cheekbones. The blood pressure cuff around his left bicep was set to automatically inflate every ten minutes, and when it next did it registered a significant drop that had the nurse immediately reaching for her glasses in light of all the other clinical readings. She said nothing, but Harry knew she was requesting the presence of a doctor and equally knew that a silent request for assistance was never a good thing in medical any more than it was coming from a Knight in the field. It went against every instinct he had in his body to do so, but Harry had stood up and moved the chair back from where he’d been sat close enough that he could reach out and touch if he were brave enough, Amelia and a second nurse entering the room as he deposited it in the corner out of the way and forced himself to remain beside it.

 

It had been less…frantic, he supposed, than the previous night, but the alarms began to go off one by one all the same. Suction yielded blood, as expected, but where it had stopped quite quickly before, there seemed to be no end to the volume that was being cleared this time. Instructions flowed calmly but rapidly:  previously unneeded blood bags retrieved from the fridge near Harry, drugs into two of his three IV catheters, alterations to the pressure being used to ventilate him, and after another 100ml of blood steadily filled the vacuum container attached to the wall, there was a one way conversation over comms asking for the operating theatre to be on stand-by for a possible lobectomy  _as previously discussed_. They’d done scans and x-rays the night before, followed by putting a fibreoptic camera into his lungs to try and locate the source of the bleeding and, if luck was on their side, indications of the cause. Suffice to say they hadn’t found the latter, but they had been able to localise where the worst of the problem was and he and Merlin had been informed that if there was further bleeding and it proved too difficult to control they would have to take him to theatre and remove the offending part of his lung. The migraine had hit very shortly afterwards and Harry didn’t believe in coincidence.

 

With Eggsy critically ill and Harry still processing all that had happened, it had come as no surprise that Merlin was monitoring the chatter on the medical frequency alongside trying to juggle his own responsibilities and take care of what he could to lighten Arthur’s workload. The man had already cancelled anything that could wait from his schedule whilst he’d slept, allowing Harry to field most of the work he couldn’t delegate or outright ignore from his own tablet in the minutes where Eggsy’s unnatural silence and stillness had proven too much.

 

_“Harry?”_

 

Harry had nodded just once in response to the familiar burr in his ear, clenching the back of the chair so tightly he was certain the creaking plastic would break under the strain. Before him the situation had seemed to be gradually improving. They hadn’t looked to be preparing to wheel Eggsy away, and as seconds ticked by like hours the monitors had gradually changed as he watched, red flashing digits slowly shifting one by one to static white ones as the measures they’d taken finally took a hold and the man he loved began to rally once more. The staff had still been tense, but that too had lessened before his eyes and Harry had forced himself to breathe a little more deeply, relax his grip on the chair somewhat.

 

“ _You alright?” Merlin asked, quickly followed up by a mumbled curse as if realising what a stupid question that was, “I’ll hand Gawain off as soon as he’s left his mark and come down,”_

 

Harry hadn’t told him not to, just nodded once more.

 

When it was no longer feasible for Merlin to stay away from Technical and his team any longer, and there was nothing more he could achieve for Eggsy from medical, the man had split his time fairly equally between being in operations and keeping Harry company. He’d brought food at lunch time, coffee and water in between along with mission updates, restraining himself to only rolling his eyes when Harry accepted the first liquid offering with a questioningly raised eyebrow. Roxy had come down twice, concern and worry clear in her eyes on both occasions, having been alerted by scuttlebutt on arriving at the mansion that her best friend was fighting for his life. There was confusion, at first, followed by cold anger on learning what they believed to be the cause. She would have terrified even Harry had he been on the receiving end. She’d sat with Eggsy for half an hour the second time in Harry’s stead, small but decidedly deadly hand curled around his own, Harry unwilling to leave but unable to do anything but in the face of an unavoidable conference call with both MI6 and Statesmen that had been prearranged for weeks. Whilst he might desperately want it to, the outside world didn’t stop just because he felt like his was at very real risk of crumbling around him.

 

If Eggsy – if he didn’t –

 

“Don’t go there,”

 

Harry glanced at Merlin sat in the chair he’d brought in with him, but the other man was ostensibly focused on his tablet to all intents and purposes, fingers tapping with familiar ferocity.

 

“Rather hard not to,”

 

“Gawain reports that he’s got new intel, he’s uploading it onto his server as we speak. Look, Eggsy is the second most stubborn man I’ve ever met. He’s a fighter, he’s still here, and we’re going to find out what the hell he’s been dosed with then go kick the appropriate arses,”

 

Harry snorted derisively.

 

“You make it sound like a forgone conclusion. Does he know the location of the next drop?”

 

“Cayman Islands. And that’s because it is. Someone will get what’s coming to them, Harry, and there are 11 exceptional men and one equally exceptional, hugely pissed off woman all just waiting to be told where to find the bastard. Not to mention half of my handlers and Cathy in requisitions,”

 

That bit Harry knew to be indisputable, even if he couldn’t believe the other reassurances. His wasn’t the only heart Eggsy had won in his relatively short time within the agency, and though inappropriate and hypocritical as it was, he regarded the fact that the thought of any of them harbouring more than respect and platonic intentions set his teeth on edge in a new light.

 

Merlin knew better than to give empty platitudes in situations like this, they both did, but for all the other man’s confidence in both Eggsy and Kingsman, that’s exactly what his words felt like. Alongside the perpetual ache in his chest, there was a sense of being shaken and unmoored that was unfamiliar and deeply unpleasant, and it far surpassed any of the uncomfortable feelings he’d experienced in relation to Eggsy’s wellbeing prior to this. If he hadn’t realised it yesterday, there would have been little possible doubt now that biology had tethered him to the younger man. And that in and of itself, though amazing and unanticipated and  _Christ, I love him_ , didn’t change anything. Not a thing, no matter what his heart and hindbrain might be desperately trying to convince him of in the minute periods of respite from concern and fear. Having a partial bond to the other man, an unrequited bond, was his problem, one that time and distance could break if he chose to do so. And even if he chose not to break it, It wasn’t something that Eggsy needed to ever know about, because he deserved so much more than to be subjected to the unwanted attentions of a somewhat broken old man. They were friends, they shared a house, and it would never be anything more. The sooner Harry convinced himself of that once more, the better it would be for everyone.  _This changes nothing_.

 

“Anything from our man in the Kremlin?”

 

Merlin paused in his typing just long enough to glance at his watch.

 

“Not yet. I’ve verbal contact scheduled in ten minutes though, hopefully he’ll have news then,”

 

Harry shifted once more, tapped a finger against his knee and received a long-suffering sigh in response.

 

“Fuck’s sake, just touch him already, would you?”

 

He forced his fingers to still.

 

“I beg your pardon?”

 

Merlin sighed again and put down his tablet, expression compassionate even as his tone carried fond frustration.

 

“Your fingers have been twitching almost constantly since I got down here and they got that camera out of his chest for a second time, you’ve reached for his hand and caught yourself twice today that I’ve seen. Stop torturing yourself, Harry. He’s sedated, and even if he wasn’t, I highly doubt he’d mind you showing some physical affection under the circumstances. Christ knows he touched you often enough when you were in both comas and he thought no one was looking,”

 

The frustration faded then, something far softer taking its place and preventing Harry from properly comprehending that last statement.

 

“In the last 24 hours you’ve watched him almost die twice, and right now we both know that you’ll likely have to sit through more of the same unless our Russian comes through. I’m not saying molest the lad, I’m saying give yourself some damn comfort that he would give you  _freely_ and without hesitation if he had any say in the matter,”

 

There was a quiet throat clearing from behind them in the ensuing pregnant pause, and both men turned in sync to look at the forgotten young nurse currently charged with providing constant care and monitoring to the man in question.

 

“I was about to-” she began, nervously stumbling over her words with both of them staring at her so intently, “That is to say…”

 

Clearly seeking composure, the woman closed her eyes briefly before drawing up to her full but diminutive height and forcing herself to meet Harry’s gaze.

 

“Excalibur could do with a wipe down, sir, to help regulate his temperature. Would you like me to get you the water?”

 

Which was how, five minutes later, Harry found himself in the surreal but very welcome position of tending to Eggsy with a damp cloth. It was slightly strange to have Merlin and the nurse in the room as he did so, but he could think of nothing that would stop him now that he’d started, because touching the younger man was soothing him in ways he’d always previously thought were all Hollywood hyperbole and ridiculousness.

 

_“Sponge bath wasn’t quite what I had in mind…” Merlin groused lightly._

 

It wasn’t what he’d had in mind either, to be fair, but he didn’t have the strength left in him to refuse once the offer was there. As the nurse had disappeared out the door, Harry had set about taking off his jacket and rolling up his shirt sleeves, Merlin’s background bitching not able to hide the fact that he approved of the decision.

 

He’d started with Eggsy’s right hand, inhaling deeply as he so very carefully cradled it in one palm whilst running the cool fabric over the back and along each of his fingers. A turn then to afford the same treatment to his palm, before moving up over the pale skin of his vulnerable wrist and inner forearm, pausing only to dip the cloth back into the bowl of tepid water that the nurse had fetched following his quiet but resolute ‘Please’. He studiously avoided the catheter in the crook of his right elbow currently feeding blood into his body, instead cupping his forearm to run the cloth up over his bicep and on to his shoulder. The skin on skin contact – entirely innocent and wholly tender – worked to settle some of his anxiety and relieve the itch in his fingertips that had nearly driven him mad since reluctantly releasing Eggsy from his arms the night before. He avoided the man’s chest entirely, too many important sensors and wires covering the smooth skin for him to chance dislodging one no matter how easily it could be resituated, and instead lightly wiped over the flushed skin of his exposed throat next, his free hand very delicately settling against Eggsy’s cheek after only a moment of indecision. There was a rasp against the fabric here, almost two days’ worth of stubble catching against the soft cloth and prickling against his palm, the heat of fever quickly warming both through. Harry diligently refreshed the cloth twice before moving on, imagining from experience how uncomfortable it would feel to be feverish and unshaven if the other man were awake, the thought sincerely disquieting until he was satisfied he’d done all he possibly could.

 

For the first time since finding him, Harry’s excessively loud, incessant thoughts were blissfully muted as he leant over and carefully worked around the breathing tube and tape holding it in place, eyes moving over Eggsy’s face and taking note of all the tiny details he’d never been close enough to properly catalogue before. There were faint laughter lines at the corner of his eyes, a few dark hairs spread amongst the predominantly golden ones that made up his stubble, a tiny, straight scar at the edge of his left eyebrow, almost silver with age and healing. He was still aware of Merlin talking to their double agent over his glasses in the background, the rushing sounds of artificially supported breathing, the clinical smell of antiseptic that masked most of Eggsy’s fevered scent, but none of it mattered an iota as he found himself sinking into the peace and calm of being able to practically care for the younger man. Without any attempt or effort on his part, Harry’s breathing gradually fell into rhythm with Eggsy’s, and the pain in his chest didn’t lessen as such, but it did soften to something less sharp and insistent as he curled his palm around the side of the younger man’s throat and gently wiped across his forehead. It was in doing that his fingertips snagged against something at the back of Eggsy’s neck and instantly drew Harry’s attention, unconsciously stroking his thumb back and forth over stubbled skin as he tilted his head to see what it was.

 

“Can the dressing from the other day come off?” he quietly asked, the nurse in line to receive a very large, very anonymous bouquet of flowers stood just across from him on the other side of bed, attending to one of the IV pumps. The edge under his fingers was all curled up and rumpled, not even attached to skin anymore.

 

“Yes, sir. Let me just…”

 

Harry waited patiently as she quickly finished programming the pump to deliver his next dose of antibiotics and then reached over to carefully turn Eggsy’s head so that he could get at the dishevelled fabric. Having been in situ for a week it came away with very little pulling, the thought crossing his mind that Eggsy must have forgotten to - Oh.

 

_Well, fuck._


	8. Chapter Seven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Merlin considers the logistical implications of Eggsy's ailment and has a moment with Roxy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven't written much at all since my last update, but as I've kept you on pins for far too long already, I've decided to upload this chapter all the same. My rationale is that as I'm unexpectedly in hospital with my small person for the next 10-14 days, I have a lot more time in which to write than I would do normally at home and therefore should get back to having at least 2 chapters in hand in no time, right? Right??
> 
> Just to change things up, a lot of the science in this chapter is actually entirely factually correct. As is the geographical shit, so way to go, me! My google history is so worrying since I started writing this fic. Honestly, it's a wonder I haven't made it onto a government watchlist. XD

It never ceased to amaze Merlin how situations could turn on a dime. Sometimes it was for the better, sometimes for worse, but quite often in their line of work – like now – a frustrating mixture of both.

Their ‘friend’ embedded fairly high up in the KGB and merrily playing both sides hadn’t been able to tell them what had been in the dart, but he _had_ been able to give Merlin a name that with a little further research was very definitely the fucker who would do well to start running. He wouldn’t get very far even if he did, but there was a part of him that wanted Vladimir Vasiliev to try so that they had a legitimate excuse to bring the full force of Kingsman down on his head rather than just the two or three enraged Knights he knew they’d eventually end up sending in to deal with him. It turned out that he was a former Cold War scientist whose qualifications included a degree in biochemical engineering and testing his own modified biological weapons on remote villages in the Siberian tundra back in the late 1980s. The tests had killed dozens of his innocent countrymen, slowly and painfully, and although under their direct employ, the Russian authorities took an even more dire view of supposedly unsanctioned weapons development than most governments. With a price on his head, Vasiliev had fled and been in hiding for decades, and though the Kremlin said they had believed him successfully killed off the back of intel a couple of years previously, it turned out he was annoyingly alive and well and operating a lab out of the Ural mountains. The foot of Mount Narodnaya to be precise, the satellite Merlin had ‘borrowed’ from the Russian’s themselves (purely because it was the most conveniently positioned, of course) relaying a lot of very useful information about the biological weapons facility - that they officially swore they didn’t know existed - in the three hours before they managed to lock him out.

_Didn’t know it existed, my arse._

So, ten hours earlier, as he’d thanked the KGB for their assistance and signed off with completely dishonest promises of keeping the double agent in the loop, he’d felt slightly better that he could at least tell Harry they had a probable who even if they still didn’t have a what. Except, as it turned out, Harry had entirely by accident found their _what_ in the process of comforting himself. And where the name had ultimately prompted the turn for the better, knowing what Eggsy was afflicted with turned out to be the paradoxical turn for the worse overall.

Having tapped his glasses to close the audio-only connection, he’d quickly fired off a message to the duty intelligence officer in Technical that simply read ‘Re: Excalibur. Vladimir Vasiliev?’. That done, and knowing he would start getting information about their new person of interest within minutes, he’d turned his attention to Harry and the nurse quietly conversing at Eggsy’s bedside. He wouldn’t have said that Harry looked better exactly, but he’d seemed more focussed and assured of himself than he had as they’d discussed Gawain just fifteen minutes earlier, soothed as anyone with half a brain knew he would be by physical contact. He’d made a note to arrange for something nice to be sent – anonymously of course – to the wee lass that had helped Harry with Eggsy, because her admittedly awkward intervention had been a stroke of genius, if somewhat more intimate than Merlin had envisaged, and you couldn’t deny that it would have taken no small amount of bravery for her to encourage Arthur of all people to give someone a damn sponge bath. Even if that someone was Eggsy and almost everyone down to the lowliest cleaner knew how Harry felt about the man and vice versa. Pair of idiots. The older, supposedly wiser of the idiots in question, had carefully peeled a medical dressing from the back of Eggsy’s neck as Merlin had watched, the nurse holding his head to the side to provide easier access.

_“We have a likely name,” Merlin offered, knowing that Harry would have been at least half listening to the conversation, despite being engaged as he was in so tenderly caring for Eggsy._

_He expected Harry to respond to the news, a quiet ‘good’ or some such at the very least, but there was only silence. A loaded silence, Merlin quickly realised, accompanied by a complete absence of movement from the other man which immediately caught his attention, prompting him to get out of his seat and approach the bed. He was almost at his side when Harry slowly straightened and cast a darkly worried gaze at him over his shoulder, gesturing towards Eggsy’s neck and moving just enough to allow Merlin a clear view._

_“I’ve got a very likely cause,”_

Anthrax.

Of all the nasty, shitty, horrible bacteria to fuck around with, they had now confirmed that Vasiliev was concentrating on anthrax. And not just the normal kind either, because of course not, no, he was fucking about with extensively do-it-yourself genetically modified, weaponised anthrax at that. Embittered old spies that they were, the small, newly uncovered lesion that surrounded the dart’s entry point on Eggsy’s neck had been unmistakeable to both Harry and Merlin, and any measure of relief either man expected to find in knowing what he was infected with was instead all but obliterated _by_ _knowing what he was infected with._

Fucking anthrax.

Unmodified, the type and extent of infection was usually topical and limited by the method of exposure. A cutaneous method of infection – like a dart – would lead to the first signs of localised skin based disease within a week, somewhat unpleasant but with a very slow progression and very rarely fatal if picked up and treated. That was usually easy to do because the lumps and bumps left on the skin were distinct, so if a doctor found one they instantly knew what they were up against. If the spores were inhaled, the bacteria caused lung infection, and that was the far nastier option. Caught quickly and treated there was a good survival rate, but that wasn’t always easy to do when natural onset could be delayed by weeks and the infection capable of progressing from non-symptomatic to life-threatening in just a handful of hours. At the point the infection became haemorrhagic and patients were coughing up blood, survival rates dropped to just 20% even with the right antibiotics and intensive medical intervention. They were still waiting for formal confirmation from the lab, but finding the unique, easily recognisable lesion on Eggsy’s neck coupled with his respiratory symptoms? It was hard not to reach the conclusion that somehow, definitely unnaturally, the bacteria in the dart had been modified in such a way that it also infiltrated his chest. It was the only thing that made sense, even if it didn’t make conventional sense if you knew anything about the natural pathology of the shite. Medical had concurred though, because it certainly supported Eggsy’s current condition empirically, and they’d immediately switched him onto the aggressive first line antibiotic regimen that normally worked for anthrax. ‘Normally’ was a worrying qualifier here, partly because Eggsy had been in the haemorrhaging stage for over 35 hours now, so was already well up shit creek without a paddle in the survival stakes, and partly given the data that was coming to light as Merlin and most of the still standing members of his department burnt the midnight oil to dig deeper.

Kingsman hadn’t routinely screened for traditional biological contaminants since the early ‘90s, the fall of communism in the eastern bloc in ‘89 leading to the risk of biological weapons being used like this being all but eliminated. It was something that Merlin now knew would have to change for the foreseeable future. They’d go after Vasiliev, destroy his lab and deal with any known associates, but they wouldn’t necessarily be able to trace all of his customers and it would be downright stupid not to be very wary now that they knew there was a modified version of the bacteria in existence. Harry had already notified all the heads of the major international spy agencies, including – indirectly, of course - the ones like Kingsman that they weren’t supposed to know existed, as well as MI5, MI6 and the Joint Intelligence Organisation. Protocol for most things was to notify only their own sovereign authorities and those of close allies if appropriate, but biological and chemical warfare trumped pretty much anything else and it was accepted etiquette that a global alert go out. It was both practically and morally the right thing to do, regardless of politics. It was also now officially Kingsman’s mess to contain, what with Eggsy being the first known case of infection, and it was already giving Merlin a headache just thinking about the logistics. They’d have to try and secure samples of both the live bacteria and any delivery methods for analysis, take extra precautions when it came to breaching the lab or dealing with anyone the Russian had been involved with for starters. There was also the possibility that it wasn’t just anthrax Vasiliev had been playing with; there was strong evidence to suggest that it was his main focus, but main was in no way synonymous with sole. Theoretically, if it turned out he wasn’t just altering _bascilius anthracis_ , there could be all sorts of other mutated viruses and bacteria entering circulation as weapons, and only time and reconnaissance would be able to confirm that. Whilst everyone, not least Merlin, wanted Vasiliev annihilated sooner rather than later, it would be at least a month, perhaps more, before they were in any way ready to orchestrate a mission to take him down.

All of that was irrelevant to Eggsy though in the here and now, and Harry, who was more overtly worried than he’d been before they knew what they were up against. He would have considered that no mean feat and in some ways counter-intuitive, because at least they were giving him the right drugs now (hopefully) rather than a broad-spectrum best guess, but Merlin couldn’t blame him when in some ways he wasn’t much better. Eggsy, like any living Knight, had a good track record with seemingly insurmountable odds, but a 1-in-5 against anthrax was…Merlin didn’t think there were enough negative adjectives in the English language to describe the current scenario. Bollocks, perhaps? Not a genuine adjective, but…

Aye, utter bollocks would do.

Total, utter and absolute bollocks, as he slipped into Eggsy’s room and nodded a silent greeting to another nurse whose name he didn’t know, eyebrows rising up his forehead as he took in what he found.

Harry wasn’t in the chair he’d claimed for his own. Harry was stretched out on a cot that looked suspiciously like it had been purloined from the recruit dorms, the bed placed against the far wall in such a way that lying on his side the man would be able to see Eggsy were he still awake, which he currently wasn’t. There was a blanket drawn up over his shoulder, his shoes, tie, watch and wallet neatly lined up on the floor, and an incongruously bright wodge of blue cotton pressed between his cheek and the hospital issue pillow.

From Harry’s chair, Roxy gave Merlin a small, tired smirk, legs tucked up beneath her and an arm outstretched to cover Eggsy’s hand with her own. She was in civvies, blond hair down for a change, and looking the most casual Merlin had ever seen her. He didn’t have the energy to laugh, but he was able to muster a small, definitely amused quirk of his lips before silently moving the second chair in the room close to her side and very definitely not collapsing into it.

“I had to drug him,”

The quiet statement wasn’t quite the truth, a lie of omission as to the full circumstances, but it was worth it to see Roxy’s smirk grow slightly, eyes sparkling in the low light as she looked at him.

“What can I say? I’d tell you it was my feminine wiles, but we’d both know that wasn’t true,” she murmured, voice low so as not to wake Harry as well as in deference to the ridiculously early hour. “A t-shirt from Eggsy’s locker though? You might want to try that first next time,”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Merlin managed, wondering how Harry had responded to the suggestion or if she’d just handed it to him without warning. The young woman was far from daft, and fierce to a degree that had she handed Merlin one of Eggsy’s t-shirts he’d probably have obediently gone to sleep with it too, to be honest. It had to have been at least slightly awkward though. She was Eggsy’s best friend, granted, and had spent time at Stanhope Mews in the company of both men as a result, but she was also still a junior Knight under Harry’s command. He would be eternally grateful that she’d miraculously persuaded him to sleep, but Merlin wasn’t entirely sure where the lines between personal and professional had been drawn between her and Harry, so when it looked like Roxy was about to say something more, something that might put him in an awkward position as both Quartermaster and Harry’s best friend, he immediately changed the subject. “How’s he doing?”

 _Far, far from daft_ , Merlin thought again, as she raised a knowing eyebrow at the diversion before both brows drew down into a pensive, concerned expression. Her gaze flicked to Eggsy for a long moment and then back to Merlin once more.

“Not great. He had another bleed – only a small one, this time. But they’re talking about changing the ventilator settings to do all the work for him? Give him a rest, I suppose, and the antibiotics more time to be effective. The doctor is coming back at five to review the situation, as long as nothing changes before then,”

They were both aware that a lot could happen in an hour. Merlin knew that, right now, the best outcome they could actually hope for was no change at all, because anything else just wouldn’t bode well for the lad. As he watched Roxy begin to absently worry at her bottom lip, it was clear she knew it too.

“How are you holding up, Lancelot?” he asked, because Harry wasn’t the only one on whom the situation was taking a helluva toll.

“Did you know that anthrax was discovered in 1877?” Roxy asked quietly, in lieu of actually answering the question and telling Merlin all he needed to know by doing so.

“I did,”

“Do you know that it was first used as a biological weapon in the First World War?”

 “I do,” Merlin agreed softly. “Lancelot –“

It was obvious Roxy wasn’t going to be deterred. She sounded detached, distanced from what she was saying, but it was readily apparent that she was anything but even with the quiet, incredibly controlled quality of her voice.

“Do you know that once patients reach this stage there’s a less than 20% chance of survival even with treatment?”

And what could he possibly say to that? He knew, just as she knew, just as Harry knew, and it absolutely fucking sucked AND blowed that they were in this situation, that Eggsy’s life and Harry’s heart both hung in the balance with no way of knowing on which side the chips would fall, but it was the risk they all willingly took every time they put on their suits. Merlin closed his eyes briefly, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose.

“Roxy –“

“Do you know that -“

Merlin was done. Absolutely. Between his own feelings, Harry’s and now being faced with Roxy’s too, the man was at his absolute limit. That’s what he’d tell himself later, when he reflected on why he found himself reaching out and grabbing the younger woman’s unoccupied hand, squeezing it tightly in an effort to comfort rather than resting a hand on her shoulder as he would have done for anyone else beyond the two other men in the room.

“Roxy, lass, enough. Ok? Trust me, I know _._ I  _know,_ ”

He did, he knew it all, all the facts she could likely ever spout about the nasty shite as well as everything she wasn’t saying and probably then some. Roxy seemed to be staring at their joined hands in as much surprise as Merlin felt, but he was too weary, too exhausted, and neither of them seemed to want to pull away. For a long minute the pair sat just like that, side by side on arse-crippling chairs, silent and thoughtful and taking strength from simply holding hands.

It was Roxy that eventually broke the silence, certain and, Merlin thought, genuinely terrifying in her quiet conviction. He couldn’t say he’d noticed at what point him holding her hand had become a mutual thing, but as she spoke he found that their fingers were now interlaced.

“Whatever happens, I’m going to kill Vasiliev,”

“Yes, you are,” he agreed, equally certain.

When the time came to knobble the bastard, Merlin fully intended for Lancelot to be one of the Knights given the responsibility. If she wasn’t, it definitely wouldn’t be because he’d told her no, that was for sure. If anyone disagreed, they could feel free to be his guest and tell her so, but Merlin liked having his balls attached to his body, and like most sane men, generally did his best to keep them that way.

“Oh, and just so you know, I fully intend to lock the pair of them in a room once Eggsy’s recovered. They’re both complete and utter idiots and it’s driving me mad,”

Merlin choked out a laugh. It was low and quiet, barely more than an extended breath, but laughter all the same.

“Use my office,”

Anything to put him out of his misery, honestly.

_God, anything._


	9. Chapter Eight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Harry continues to spend all his time with Eggsy, considers the future and has a few moments with Roxy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My writing pace on this has slowed massively of late, for reasons best known only to my muse. That said, I am writing on a near daily basis, and although it's not coming out as fluidly as it was, it is at least still coming. I still fully believe that this fic will get finished, you just might need a little more patience to accept the longer waits between chapters. I've also knocked out a few thousand words on another Hartwin fic, but I don't intend to work much at all on that until I've got this one a bit more under control. Huge thank yous to all the people that are kudosing, commenting and bookmarking: you guys are epic and keeping me focused if not entirely on track.
> 
> I'm not entirely sure, but from sisterly feedback I suspect Harry may come across to some as being slightly OOC in this chapter. I assure you that if that is your interpretation it's deliberate on my part, although my view is more that he's in character just having a hard time. After all, Harry is having a very bad, no good, terrible week in which he's experiencing intense emotions and no small amount of worry, and he is very decidedly human. Would love to know whether people find him OOC in the comments though, so feel free to share your thoughts.
> 
> Also, I'll just remind everyone once more that I sacrifice medical accuracy for the story on a regular basis. A kind and knowledgeable reader pointed out a significant discrepancy as to how Anthrax would be dealt with in RL, but if I followed protocol it would mess up a lot of intimate Hartwin moments I want to write in. Just remember, if you're ever dealing with respiratory Anthrax in real life, always follow hazmat/barrier and isolation protocol!
> 
> Oh, and before I forget, 'TROPE WARNING' for the obligatory My Fair Lady reference in this chapter.
> 
> And now, on with the show...

By no stretch of the imagination could anyone accuse Harry of being a pessimist, but as the hours and then days crawled by he was still very definitely waiting for the other shoe to drop. 

Intellectually, he understood that the decision to override Eggsy’s own attempts at breathing the day before wasn’t a negative, per se. It was _not_ an indication that he was losing the fight, it was about giving his exhausted body a break to enable it to concentrate on fighting the infection and give the antibiotics the best chance to assist with that.  Realistically, the machines had been doing most of the heavy graft for hours in the lead up to it anyway, only occasionally being superseded by Eggsy’s own efforts to breathe where for the first day and a half it had been the other way around. You couldn’t say it was no big deal, but by the same token, he kept reminding himself that it wasn’t a portent of doom either and it was being done to help rather than as an absolute necessity. But he also knew more about anthrax than he’d ever set out intending to thanks to his military service during the looming threat of biological warfare back in the Thatcher years, and seeing the effects up close, in Eggsy of all people, meant that emotionally? It was proving difficult to reconcile the situation, even knowing that there’d been no heavy bleeding for almost 29 hours now, and that _was_ a good sign. The magic window given by Amelia had been a total of 48 hours from the last major haemorrhage: if Eggsy remained stable with no more than the current, relatively miniscule amounts of blood being brought up by routine suction for that period of time, then they could be confident that the tide had turned and the drugs were winning.

He told Eggsy that as he carefully and meticulously worked around the ventilator to remove the scruffy, four day old beard from his face, speaking in warm, gentle tones as he scraped the razor across his cheek. Told him he was doing a good job and to keep at it, that the doctors were pleased, that he was proud of him. The temptation was there to say so much more, so many things sitting on the tip of his tongue just begging to be said aloud, but even with him sedated, Harry didn’t dare. Lost in the depths of his last coma, he had heard fragments of people speaking to him. Sometimes just odd words, sometimes whole sentences, but there and very much real. When he finally awoke he had recalled hearing Merlin occasionally bitch and gripe about missions in the darkness, nameless voices exchanging idle chatter as the nurses cared for him, and Eggsy quietly reading to him. Whilst his awareness of it had been limited to fleeting moments, enough had filtered through for him to know that the younger man had chosen _Pygmalion_ to while away a few of the countless hours at his side and added commentary on the bits that had amused and bemused him.

_‘You my Henry Higgins, Harry?’_

In the moment he could recall wanting to answer without really knowing why, to tell him no, he didn’t want to change him in any way, but his awareness had faded as the thought occurred and he was floating blankly in the abyss once more. Probably for the best, although he’d most likely have still gotten away with saying it given the spectacular drugs they had him on for the first couple of weeks after he’d found consciousness. And the fact that although he recognised people, knew their names, his knowledge of who they were beyond that had been as hit and miss as the knowledge of his own identity for a good month. It had been fun times. Not.

He might not be in a coma, but saying anything that couldn’t be taken back was too much of a risk. So keeping that firmly in mind, Harry very deliberately kept his words to things that he would have had no qualms about saying were Eggsy awake as he worked. He filled him in on what they were learning about Vasiliev, although being very careful to blunt his fury lest it bleed through in his tone; informed him that Gawain had successfully wrapped up his mission and that Bors was slowly starting to feel more human. He also told him that Lancelot had virtually destroyed one of the punch bags in the gym that morning, and that when he woke up he should fully expect to be unable to so much as clear his throat without her at least clenching a fist for a few months. Pausing in doing the best he could with the younger man’s top lip, Harry glanced up at the knock on the door and spotted the woman herself through the small window, beckoning her in with a nod given that his hands were slightly foamy and otherwise occupied.

Harry liked Roxy.

When his memories were still somewhat scrambled, he’d watched Eggsy and Roxy together and wondered if the pair would eventually fall into a relationship. The idea of Eggsy being alone for the rest of his life due to Kingsman had niggled at him, caused a low melancholy in the moments where he was struck by how much love the young man deserved and would probably never find, what a waste it was, even if he hadn’t realised the root of it at the time. They were close in age, and despite the obvious differences in attitude and upbringing, he thought they’d probably make quite a good match. He’d even asked the younger man once, only to watch his face screw up into a comical look of horrified realisation and be told:

“Fuck no, Harry! Jesus! No offence to Rox, yeah? She’s funny and smart and hot, alright, I can see that, but she can be scary as fuck and she’s so not my type it’s unreal. She’s my best mate, it’d be like dating my own sister. Me and Roxy would be so fucking wrong,”

As his memories became less scrambled and he’d recalled what he’d seen of the Lancelot selection process, the truth of that statement became obvious. They were very much like siblings, playfully competitive and prone to needling each other mercilessly whilst still always watching out for each other. They went out clubbing together, spent occasional lazy afternoons on shared days off sprawled over the sofa, but the idea of anything sexual between them was absolutely ‘so fucking wrong’. Thank God. Harry might not have liked the idea of Eggsy being alone, but even with massive gaps in his memory he’d still been a selfish bastard that subconsciously liked the idea of having to watch him in a relationship with anyone even less. If it would have been difficult to witness before, it would be completely intolerable now. And apart from that, the more time that passed, the more he was certain that Roxy had a crush on Merlin, and Eggsy hadn’t said anything to successfully convince him otherwise to date. Harry wasn’t one to play matchmaker, because how astoundingly ironic would that be when he was so thoroughly shit when it came to his own feelings, but he suspected that the smart, feisty beta could do his ornery friend a lot of good if there was mutual interest. It was often hard to tell with Merlin and always had been, notorious as he was for trying to keep any notion of having positive feelings to himself, but waking to meet with the doctor the day before only to catch him loudly catching flies with his hand in hers suggested it was at least a possibility. Roxy had tried to be casual about disentangling their digits as Harry had set about righting himself, but only succeeded in waking the other man and furthering his suspicions.

“Sorry to interrupt, Arthur,” Roxy started, coming to stand by the bed, “But Merlin asked me to come down and sit with Eggsy whilst you twist some more Russian panties,”

“I’m going to assume that’s a direct quote and not your personal interpretation, Lancelot,” Harry deadpanned, even though his heart was already sinking and there was an itch threatening beneath his skin. “Immediately?”

The young woman nodded.

“Verbatim, sir,” she said, opting to study the monitors rather than the way Harry was so very gently removing the last trace of stubble from just under Eggsy’s nose.

Harry did his best to swallow the frustration he felt and wanted to unfairly unleash on her, and knew full well that was exactly why Merlin had opted to send her rather than contacting him over the comms. Gentlemen only shot the messenger when national security depended on it, regardless of how short a fuse they currently had. Harry could recognise that his had been shrinking quite rapidly for the last few days, very definitely not aided by trying to function on less than four hours sleep in the last forty-eight and too long out of the field now to shake off the fatigue and exhaustion the way he once would have done. And, being honest, even well rested it wasn’t as if he was renowned for having an ironclad grip on his temper to begin with.

Finally as satisfied as he was going to get using a cheap safety razor, Harry put the blade down on the rolling cabinet used to store personal belongings and reached for the small, grey towel folded over his shoulder to wipe away the remnants of shaving foam from both his hands and Eggsy’s face. When there was nothing but clean skin left, he ran his knuckles along the line of the younger man’s jaw in a supposedly brief caress intended to assess how good a job he’d done, but actually had far more to do with just touching him.  Since first being offered the opportunity, he’d touched Eggsy more frequently and more intimately than he’d ever hoped to have occasion to, and whilst on the one hand it was something every element of his being was wholly on board with, on the other, stopping was going to be a nightmare. It was something that was going to require a genuinely herculean feat of self-control. He wouldn’t go back and change the decision to take over regularly wiping him down (and now shaving him) from the nursing staff even if he could, but there was a little voice in the back of his head telling him in no uncertain terms _you **will** regret this._ Harry the man, as opposed to Harry the alpha, concurred completely, but it wasn’t enough to make him stop or hold back because every part of him still wanted it so damn badly. He was slowly coming to realise that resting a hand on Eggsy’s shoulder would never carry the same warmth or mild thrill that it had prior to this shitter of a week, that he would forever be craving the soothing comfort that stole over him with just a small amount of skin to skin contact. He’d noticed it perhaps half a dozen times before, most notably in the back of a van in the arse-end of Vladivostok just the week before, but now that he knew what that sensation really was, the origin of it, the prospect of not routinely having it was something he could barely bring himself to consider. But if he was considering that, and thoughts in a similar vein, then at least he was clinging on to the idea that Eggsy would pull through rather than getting caught up in the desperate, persistently nagging fear that any minute he could be gone.

Realising that he’d been just stood staring at Eggsy with his knuckles still resting against his jaw for far, far longer than checking the quality of his work would require, Harry did his best not to sound awkward as he cleared his throat, muttered a diversionary but pointless ‘much better’, and reluctantly set about tidying himself up ready for another KGB fairytale. Didn’t know about the lab, his arse…

“The call isn’t for another 20 minutes.”

Harry glanced up from where he was unrolling his sleeve, movements stilling at the rapidly blurted words and the audible suggestion of an internal wince beneath them. Roxy looked like she wanted the ground to open up and swallow her whole, her usually calm demeanour betrayed by a blush. “I mean, if you wanted to…”

He had absolutely no idea how she was intending to finish that sentence, but then it seemed neither did she as she trailed off, her mouth having clearly engaged long before her brain. As he looked at her, Roxy’s eyes flicked slightly off to the side, a tell that Knights had to learn to control out in the real world but that wasn’t an issue at HQ. He could only imagine the lambasting Merlin was giving her right that second for thwarting his plan for Harry to be on time.

Yes, Harry liked Roxy. And it was just as well, because whilst nothing was being said in so many words, it had become abundantly clear that she’d worked out his secret. If you took the t-shirt he was sleeping with and now this into account, the young woman had almost certainly worked out both of them, but Harry didn’t have the emotional reserves available to deal with that at the moment. Other than signing off on whatever Merlin asked for in relation to Vasiliev, he genuinely had no fucks left to give about much of anything. He wanted Eggsy well and Vladimir Vasiliev dead several times over, and if their intrepid Quartermaster were to request a three hundred percent increase in the technical budget to achieve either one of those then he’d very likely give it to him without hesitation right now. It wasn’t professional, it wasn’t rational, but it was honest, and Harry had to accept that and own it. He also had to own the knowledge that he was probably fooling himself if he truly believed that things could ever go back to ‘normal’ on his part if Eggsy survived this. With the revelation that he’d imprinted on Eggsy, forged a relatively uncommon connection through a combination of near-perfect biological compatibility and what romantics often referred to as a ’soul bond’, Harry knew it would now colour every thought in his head, shift every perception and intensify every desire, because he knew exactly what kind of man he was. It was far easier for him to ignore something he believed to be emotion and physical attraction than something that he now knew was already so much more. It was a simultaneously tantalising and devastating glimpse of what could have been in another world where Eggsy wanted him too, and what he’d previously considered the hackneyed plot device of more than a dozen movies from the turn of the 21st century. He would just have to make sure that it didn’t change his behaviour in turn, because unlike the movies, if he couldn’t control himself then Eggsy would be gone in a heartbeat, Harry knew, and who could blame him? The house would be empty and he would be alone in ways that he didn’t think he’d be able to face going back to, not after knowing what it was to share his life with another. Not with this link to the younger man relentlessly twisting and sparking beneath his skin now that he was truly aware of it, that he was honest enough to admit, at least in his own head, he had absolutely no intention of breaking by choice. Not even with the inherent risk it posed to the domestic status quo he’d come to love almost as much as the man himself…

Harry immediately spotted the moment that Merlin finished his protracted tirade in Roxy’s ear, not so far lost in his thoughts that he missed her attention returning to him.

“Did he threaten you with Mongolia or the Sahara?”

“Antarctic,” she offered, blush still high on her cheeks but slowly beginning to fade. Harry offered her a small smile, just a quirk of his lips really, as he slipped his jacket on and straightened out his cuffs.

“Ah, my personal favourite. It’s really not that bad after the first month and generally means he likes you. Very tranquil, significantly less sand,”

Roxy looked horrified.

“Wait, Merlin actually sent you to the Antarctic?”

Harry’s smile widened just slightly. “Twice, though I probably did deserve it the first time. I certainly never let Mr. Pickle shit on his chair again,”

He watched the young woman go from horrified to stunned to valiantly holding back what he was sure would otherwise be bright peals of laughter, Roxy covering her twitching mouth with her hand to try and compose herself. It hadn’t been particularly funny at the time, but with the benefit of well over a decade it was a fond memory now – the shitting that is, not the resultant exile disguised as long-term survival training - and it was nice to see her more animated given the sombreness that had consistently accompanied her visits to the room so far. He wasn’t sure if he’d got round to sharing that tale with Eggsy, but was fairly certain he would remember vividly if he had because it was the kind of thing that he would have found hysterically funny. He’d have laughed long and loud and wanted a blow by blow account of the incident from start to finish. His eyes would have been bright and his grin infectious, _come off it, Harry, now you’re shitting **me** _ -

“…you could sit with him for a few more minutes, there’s time,”

The gentle words made Harry realise that he’d unintentionally gravitated to the foot of the bed and was staring at Eggsy intently. He wasn’t sure what expression was on his face, or that he even wanted to know, but it was clearly something that Roxy felt warranted the kind of softness and compassion that would completely destroy her reputation as an ice maiden in front of all the other Knights bar her best friend. Dropping his chin towards his chest and forcing his gaze to follow and settle on the blankets rather than Eggsy’s face, he swallowed once in an attempt to compose himself.

“No. I apparently have panties to twist,” he stated quietly, resignation inadvertently lurking beneath his tone, then slowly tapped his knuckles twice on top of the blankets by Eggsy’s foot. “The sooner I do that, the sooner I can return. And I really don’t want to have to explain that _I’m_ the reason Merlin sent you to the Antarctic. He’d probably get JB to shit on my favourite armchair in retaliation,”

He knew his expression was bittersweet and tight, but he couldn’t manage anything else, so he concentrated on drawing his shoulders back and standing tall until he was every inch Arthur and a gentleman, if a little visibly worn around the edges. He had no idea how he was going to make it through the next god knows how long away from his side when even the thought of leaving the room was proving unbearable. It was getting progressively harder every time, not easier. He supposed he would just have to put one foot in front of the other and get on with it, just as he had in so many difficult situations before. It would be good – and very necessary – practice, but he had to go _now._

“Arthur?”

Resolution made, he’d already forced himself halfway to the door. Harry stopped to show she had his attention, but didn’t trust himself to turn and still manage to keep walking away afterwards.

“I’ve got his back. Always have, always will,” Roxy offered, sentiment utterly genuine. Her next words, though they were much softer, clearly more cautious and considered, carried no less weight or conviction and just a touch more steel. ”It might be like a brother, but I love him too, Harry,”

_…_


	10. Chapter Nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Roxy reflects. And plots. At length.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The chapter summary? Yeah, that's about it. Hopefully it's an enjoyably useful, entertaining reflection for the purposes of this tale, but not much of anything at all actually *happens* in this. I enjoyed writing Roxy though, so she will be reappearing as we go on, and I'm pretty pleased with how I feel she came out in terms of characterisation. Back to Harry for the next one, where I can assure you that stuff does actually happen once more, and if the plan holds (Roxy valiantly tried to derail it at the eleventh hour, but I eventually managed to remind her that I am actually the one in overall charge of this ridiculous show), Eggsy will be re-entering the fray shortly. 
> 
> I'm not going to apologise for the delays in updating any more, but I will very sincerely thank those who are following this for their continuing patience. There are 77 insane, lovely people subscribed now, and that just genuinely blows my mind. If I could make an actual living writing gay fiction about other people's not-gay characters, my world would be an infinitely easier place XD

The first time Eggsy had confessed his undying love for Harry, it was 2am and he was more drunk than Roxy had ever seen him. Which was impressive, but not really that much of a surprise given the circumstances. Dragging herself out of bed and blearily examining the security feed, she’d sighed and mentally steeled herself, then headed downstairs to let him in before he either woke half the street or simply decided to find his own way in and likely got himself both injured and on Merlin’s shitlist in the process. Swinging open the door, Eggsy’s next shout of ‘Roxy!’ had died almost comically on his lips partway through and he’d swayed precariously on her front step for a moment, mouth open in surprise. Then he’d squinted, pointed in her general direction with the hand currently holding an almost empty bottle of peach schnapps and loudly offered a colourful variation of the words she’d been fully expecting to hear for the better part of several months.

_“I_ really _want Harry to bum me,”_

And, also as expected at this point in time, he hadn’t sounded happy about it. In fact he’d sounded devastated, almost betrayed by the realisation, sniffing once as Roxy had pulled him over the threshold.

_“I know he’s dead and all, Rox, but I ain’t ever wanted to share a heat with anyone before,” he slurred thoughtfully as Roxy helped him stumble up the stairs. “Ain’t ever wanted to have a heat, or been attracted to an alpha, never mind wanted one anywhere near me,”_

Roxy had realised two things the first time she’d ever seen Harry and Eggsy in the same room together. The first was that, even though Galahad greeted Eggsy no differently to the rest of them, it was clear from the brief smile that crossed his lips when he looked at him that he was likely Eggsy’s proposer for Lancelot. The second was that he could play it down and deny it all he wanted, but Eggsy was utterly gone for the older man. Merlin had enlisted Harry to give the remaining six candidates a crash-course in armed hand-to-hand combat, placing particular emphasis on non-traditional weapons and how best to utilise items in one’s environment. As Harry had effortlessly, and perhaps a touch too enthusiastically with hindsight, floored Charlie with little more than his umbrella and a flick of his wrist, she wouldn’t have been surprised if Eggsy had suddenly swooned and begun fanning himself like some fair maiden on the other side of the mats, because it was blatantly apparent that there were some feelings going on for her friend. So blatant, in fact, that a person would have had to be blind and/or utterly moronic not to realise that was the case, and she could only assume the latter was the reason why none of Charlie, Rufus nor Digby had seemed to cotton on to the anime-esque heart eyes Eggsy was unable to contain in Harry’s presence.

_“And I think, yeah? I think I really, really would have liked him to knot me, you know? Be my first, and like maybe let him bite me, maybe? ‘Cos he’s so nice and pretty, Rox, Haz was lush and I know I ain’t good enough to be his mate, I ain’t good enough for him and he’d never have wanted me, but I think he’d have been really good in the sack. He’s fuckin’ actual sex god. A right beast. Did you know, Rox, did you know he’s got, like, actual size eleventy billion feet? I got all his shoes now,” Eggsy trailed off, tone turning sorrowful for a moment before he rallied again. “ Bet he was hung like a racehorse, dick like_ this _big, no lie,” he earnestly declared with arms thrown out wide to demonstrate, Roxy manhandling him into her room and letting him pitch face first onto her bed when he inevitably lost his balance._

As time went on, it became abundantly clear to Roxy that he might as well just have ‘I love Harry Hart’ tattooed across his forehead, because the reality of Eggsy’s feelings (which clearly came with an indelible capital F) was very much more than hero-worship, or gratitude, or ‘just a crush’, or any of the other self-delusional terms she knew he routinely used to justify how he felt about the older man. In the immediate aftermath of V-Day, once the adrenaline had waned her heart had ached as she watched him steadily drink himself silly on the flight home, because when the realisation came to Eggsy – and Roxy knew it would eventually – it would be with the knowledge that Harry was gone, lost to them, and never coming back.

_“It’s not fair. I loved him, why’d he have to fuckin’ die? I fucking love him, Rox, love him so, so much, and he’s gone and I never told him, never got to hold him and I can’t- I can’t even -” he broke off, sounding so small and lost and completely defeated. All Roxy could do was pull him close in the dark and do her best not to cry with him for his pain._

Three weeks to the day of Harry’s death, Roxy had learnt that peach schnapps was as rank and lethal as it smelt, had been subjected to far more details about her best friend’s sexual history and fantasies than was comfortable given she was sober at the time, and found that Eggsy sobbing broken heartedly into her arms as he finally came to terms with how much he’d actually, truly loved Harry was incredibly hard to bear. If the first nine months of their friendship had been characterised by the cliché her mother had jokily taught her in the midst of her father’s Harley Davidson buying midlife crisis that apparently wasn’t when she was nine, that denial wasn’t just a river in Egypt, the weeks that followed could only be defined by coming to thoroughly comprehend that the only thing worse than grieving for what was, was grieving for what could have been. Her mother had told her that one too, and Eggsy was the walking epitome of it despite the brave face he tried to put on the depth of his pain and regret in the days that followed. Except…

Except, four weeks later - only a week after Merlin had finally been able to bring himself to hold the toast for Galahad and they’d gone ahead with Harry’s memorial service -  they found out Harry wasn’t actually dead. He was unconscious, badly injured, but still breathing and liable to remain that way if the doctors in Kentucky were to be believed. She’d been more worried about Eggsy at that point in proceedings than she had been stood beside him at Harry’s empty grave, or sat in what was now Eggsy’s house surrounded by Harry’s completely untouched belongings, the news unsettling him in ways that she could never have anticipated beyond his immediate and ill-advised demand to be sent to the US. The overt restraint Merlin had exhibited in telling him ‘no’ without threatening to kill him, repeatedly and occasionally at length, only added to her respect for him, because she was more than ready to sedate Eggsy for the duration within the first twenty four hours. The worry had proven unfounded in the end – thankfully – but there’d been a period of about two weeks whilst waiting for Harry to be medically cleared for air travel where she didn’t know how best to help Eggsy beyond trying to keep him occupied and as far away from modes of transport that could cross the Atlantic as possible. On his absolute worst days she wouldn’t have put it past him to hijack a jet given even the smallest opportunity, so far better to avoid temptation and all that.

Galahad had returned to them comatose, sans a significant portion of his hair and with 21 metal staples in his scalp, but with a prognosis that had Merlin shaking his head in disbelief whenever it was mentioned, because he’d watched Harry get shot in the head in horrifying, high def technicolour. Yes, the glasses were bullet-proof and shatter-resistant, _but he was shot at ten fucking paces. Have we done a DNA test? Is he actually part fucking cat?_ The only reason Roxy was privy to any of it, including Merlin’s amusing, muttered theories as to how Harry could possibly have survived, had been that as Eggsy’s formally appointed ‘best bro’, it was her job to pry him out of medical at regular intervals. If he wasn’t on a mission, you could guarantee that he would be sprawled in a chair at Harry’s side, and Merlin was doing his best to balance out his obvious, fervent desire to send Eggsy to the arse-end of bumfuck nowhere for the foreseeable future with his need not to be asked how Harry was doing every five minutes over comms when he did send him anywhere. Alright, perhaps it hadn’t been _quite_ that bad, but once mission parameters and objectives were met, Eggsy had a one-track mind to get home that on one notable occasion saw him unilaterally pass up three days’ leave in Rome and royally piss off the accompanying Bedivere in the process.

Roxy had only realised precisely how tense and on edge Eggsy had been when Harry eventually woke up. He was like a puppet with its strings cut with the development, and with the new comparison, the rigid way he’d been carrying himself for weeks became glaringly obvious after the fact. Discovering that the man had a fairly significant degree of amnesia hadn’t phased Eggsy, Merlin giving him the news with a measure of hesitancy she imagined he usually only reserved for guiding a Knight driving a tank through a minefield. Not to say that was much, but it was noticeable given the amount of time she’d ended up inadvertently (but not unhappily) spending in the Quartermaster’s company in her role as Eggsy’s moral support and official Barometer of Sane and Sensible Behaviour When the Man You Not-So Secretly Love Comes Back From the Dead. (She’d tried to come up with a catchy acronym for the title once and failed miserably). Eggsy was just glad he was alive and awake, and Roxy knew that her friend had complete faith in both Harry and that the rest _would_ follow in time. Whilst not even remotely as eternally optimistic as Eggsy seemed to be, nor as personally familiar with the older Knight, Roxy placed her own faith in his certainty and did her best to censor her more rational and common sense world view, even if her extremely mild but persistent attempts to temper Eggsy’s insistence that Harry would be completely fine stemmed from wanting to protect him from further hurt.

Not wanting to see Eggsy hurt was the only explanation she had for why she’d given the shortest, singularly most obtuse and indirect shovel speech ever conceived just over two hours ago, but it was still boggling her mind somewhat. The whole exchange with Harry was something that she couldn’t have fathomed when Merlin asked her to pass on his message. The worst part was that she hadn’t intended her words as a threat, but they’d just sort of come out that way all the same – it was a weird blend of ‘don’t worry, I’ll watch over him for you’ and ‘you aren’t fooling anyone’, with just an added smidge of ‘hurt him and I’ll end you’ in her tone, that she could only blame on seeing Harry so far removed from his typical Arthur persona. The man was currently about as composed and controlled as a chocolate teapot, anyone remotely familiar with him in his professional guise able to see a brittleness in his manner that she suspected had not oft before been witnessed. Not in public, at least. It was unsettling, and clear evidence to her way of thinking that Harry’s acting out of character was contagious even if bonds were not. And that, above all else, was probably the true cause.

Harry was bonded to Eggsy.

She’d had her suspicions for a few weeks, but nothing concrete to base them on beyond gut instinct and the sense of something having shifted when she watched Harry watching her friend at every available opportunity. Having witnessed his current behaviour now for herself, it was as clear as day even if you ignored the whispers going around about when he’d found Eggsy. Rumour had it that he’d charged through the corridors like a man possessed, actually growled as they’d worked to stabilise him in medical, and Roxy could well believe it. The dopey, utterly besotted and adoring smile Harry had bestowed on Eggsy when he’d first seen him on waking up post Kentucky could only be partly blamed on the drugs, after all. The majority of it had been all Harry and the fact that he was just as in love with Eggsy as Eggsy was with him. She’d been relieved about it at the time, looked forward to the day that they finally caved and shagged like rabbits, or at least declared their feelings, only to watch with growing frustration as the pair continued to somehow miss the respective neon signs that blinded everyone in the immediate vicinity whenever they were within twenty feet of each other. In the last year she’d tried subtle hints, not-so subtle hints, gentle cajoling and, at her most despairing, outright exclamations of things like ‘for the love of God, Harry loves you too, you absolute pillock’ ad nauseam, but all to no avail. In spite of all the overwhelming, indisputable evidence, for some ridiculous reason Eggsy had got it in his head that Harry couldn’t possibly feel that way, and in the wake of his continued, worryingly low opinion of his worth as a potential partner to the other man, Roxy had been forced to scale back the full frontal assaults for the sake of preserving both their friendship and the frayed remains of her sanity. It was only a small comfort to know that Merlin clearly hadn’t faired any better coming at it from Harry’s side of things – because, whilst she might not have any evidence, she was absolutely certain he had - and was just as equally done. Perhaps more so, she thought, in their current situation.

“I love you, Eggsy, but you are a complete pain in the arse at times. You do know that, right?” Roxy sighed affectionately. The only reply she got was the continued, steady beeps of his vital signs being monitored. “I’m pretty sure he won’t after earlier, but if Arthur does give me an option, I’ll choose the Antarctic,”

The man hadn’t responded to her spontaneous words, not outwardly at least. He’d just paused for a moment before leaving the room and a somewhat mortified but adamant Roxy in his wake. She wasn’t sure if that was a good outcome or a worrying one under the circumstances, but she’d take it for now, particularly in light of the fact that she’d managed to break her personal record for self-embarrassment in less than five minutes interacting with the man. The only conversation with more potential awkwardness than that one would have been if Harry had questioned why she’d left Eggsy’s t-shirt folded on top of the pillow she’d scrounged when enacting her plan to get the man to sleep. As much as it wasn’t something she’d ever voice, he’d looked like shit and was clearly struggling when Roxy had come down to check on Eggsy. Returning in the small hours of the morning, once Harry had updated her on his condition they’d sat in silence for the most part until the man had left for a bathroom break and she used the opportunity to put her plan into action. It was either going to be one of her more epic ideas or a truly monumental mistake, but the only way to know was to try it and just hope their leader took the gesture in the manner it had been intended. Which was namely that they’d all be pissed off if he keeled over too, and she knew that Eggsy would be equally pissed if on recovering he discovered that none of them had tried to properly look after the older man. The fact that one small element of said plan would potentially prove or disprove the pervasive, niggling hypothesis that had been fermenting in her brain was mostly irrelevant, secondary only to looking after someone she cared about both on their own merits and by proxy. Because Roxy did care about Harry, he was a good man and a decent human being, and she knew that he cared about all the agents under his control in turn. The Arthur element of their relationship made his ridiculous situation with Eggsy tricky to navigate, but in no way invalidated the fact that she liked him as a person.

By the time he’d returned, a pre-prepared maintenance had brought the cot over from where she’d had it stashed adjacent to the wards, medical had provided the linens, and Roxy had moved to ‘his’ chair and done her very best to pretend that Harry Hart didn’t actually exist. That hadn’t been easy to do given the long, weighted pause when he re-entered, the temperature in the already fairly cool room plummeting at least eight degrees as Roxy had felt his gaze boring into the side of her head with near lethal intent, but she’d held her ground. Waiting with bated breath for either a reprimand or demand for an explanation, instead the threatening storm had suddenly, unexpectedly dissipated and Harry had simply silently set about settling down. Out of the corner of her eye she’d spotted the moment he noticed Eggsy’s t-shirt, watched him run a reverent hand over the fabric, and found her suspicion proven when he’d ultimately stretched out with his cheek pressed against it, taken a few deeper breaths through his nose and broken their mutual, silent vow to ignore each other. The ‘thank you’ was low and quiet, a murmur only noticeable for the weight of emotion behind it as Harry had quickly drifted off to sleep. It didn’t take a degree to know he wasn’t thanking her for the concern, or even orchestrating the cot, and Roxy had a first from Cambridge and a masters from Imperial College to her name.   

The problem now was that Roxy didn’t really know what to do with the information in her possession.

If she was right and the connection had existed for a while, that meant that Harry had chosen not to act on it, to keep the knowledge to himself. It meant that he clearly had no intention of telling Eggsy, probably for noble, martyred reasons that would be completely blown out of the water by any reasonable person on finding out that their feelings were reciprocated. She might not know Harry _that_ well, but she knew enough from spending time in his home with him present to determine that he was genuinely the gentleman he portrayed himself to be. If he had it in his head that Eggsy wasn’t interested, he would go out of his way not to impose or make him uncomfortable. She was also fairly certain that he wasn’t always the most reasonable where emotions were involved, so his bid for martyrdom might conceivably continue in the wake of finding out otherwise, but Eggsy did _want_ Harry, Harry wanted him and had formed a bloody half-bond, for goodness sake, and the mutual pining of fully grown adults was neither cute nor endearing but quite the opposite. How could two supposedly highly intelligent men who wanted the same thing be so blind? Roxy just wasn’t sure what the solution was without actually saying something to one or both of them. That then opened a whole can of worms as to whether she _should_ say anything or not. Was it her place as Eggsy’s best friend?

The way she saw it, there were three options:

Tell Harry that Eggsy was in love with him and _to_ _do something about it_.

Tell Eggsy that Harry was not only in love with him but had bonded and _to_ _do something about it_.

Lock both of them in Merlin’s office, as previously approved, until they decided _to_ _do something about it_ themselves.

Of course, she didn’t think it likely, but there was always a chance that Harry might act in light of what had happened and how badly it was effecting him. Loss, nearly losing someone, could be an incredibly powerful motivator. Perhaps it would be the catalyst needed to have one of them get their heads out of their respective arses. But Kentucky hadn’t achieved that, and if this had the same lack of impact? The problem would remain, and Roxy didn’t yet know what to do for the best if that was the case. A conversation with Harry seemed a certain overstepping of bounds given that he was first and foremost her boss, and would involve breaching Eggsy’s confidence and trust which was the ultimate no-no in best friend etiquette even if done for the greater good. A conversation with Eggsy would likely be dismissed in the same way all her previous attempts had been, and she was pretty sure that much though Merlin was at his wits end, just like her he was in an awkward position and would be unlikely to hand over the necessary video evidence of his best friend somewhat losing the plot to support her arguments. He’d certainly shut the conversation down quickly enough the other night, and that had just been with a sniff of veering into Harry’s feelings towards Eggsy. Which meant locking the two of them in a room still remained the most likely solution, but even that wouldn’t be a certainty. She absolutely would not put it past them to spend a week locked up together with nothing to do and still not actually acknowledge their respective feelings. The only thing she did know with any certainty was that she wasn’t prepared to let the current stalemate continue. Assuming Eggsy pulled through – and he was going to, _because goddamnit, Eggsy Unwin, I won’t accept anything else_ – there would have to be a resolution, because she honestly couldn’t cope with even one more drunken monologue on how perfect Harry Hart was or how undeserving Eggsy was of his affections. Not. One. Not when she knew that whilst Harry’s link to Eggsy was currently one sided, the compatibility underpinning it very definitely went both ways. Science, the limited science known about bonding, said so.

So, she’d treat it like a mission if she had to. The objective was identified, she knew what the variables were, and she’d use the time available whilst Eggsy was sick to devise a course of action that took those variables into account and delivered the desired outcome with the least amount of collateral damage. Because if she messed this up, there _would_ be collateral damage, and her relationship with Eggsy was far too valuable to risk without a very high probability of success, but Roxy couldn’t do nothing -

“I’d like your report regarding the new intel on the Beirut situation in my inbox by 4pm, please, Lancelot,”

Harry and Eggsy would at the very least talk about their feelings if it killed her. Which it just might, if the cool, deliberately blank look she was currently receiving was anything to go by.

Releasing Eggsy’s hand, Roxy stood, murmured ‘see you soon,’ and placed a quick kiss to Eggsy’s warm forehead before straightening up. Then she turned and offered up a firm but demurely deferential ‘yes, Arthur’, trying not to impart too much importance to the sympathetic look she received from the nurse on her way out.

_Come on, Roxy, you can do this._


End file.
